Melave Malka Lechoved Yarchei Kallah , Rabbi Levi Shemtov - 5786

I'm going to walk. In Washington, D.C., there was once somebody who got up at an evening of many, many speeches, and he says, "From the way they're calling up speaker after speaker, it looks like the organizers have decided that all that needs to be said has been said, but not everyone has yet said it." But the bima katzar, so that we should be able to continue with the program even though the shaya is showing me that he has time, but I don't know what the schedule is of the bochurim who are here, and and I will just try to say what I believe should be said, and to make it in a way which doesn't disrupt the schedule. I also want to point out that Rabbi Zeitlin who organizes so much of the Yachad Kollel deserves a nice round of applause. And since my father always has been saying for many, many years, "I've machen zich to bedanken Yossi Futerfas and Futerfas," I want to reiterate the thanks, cuz without them it wouldn't be possible. >> [applause] >> I fast dates at all of the other thanks that Rabbi Zeitlin mentioned. So, be'emes, it's a koved to be part of Yachad Kollel for several reasons. First of all, you watch the great roshei yeshiva and mashpi'im and rabbonim of our time coming here to offer and to debate and to share words of the Rebbe, their insights into today's matzev, different things that they learn and are mechadesh in inyanim of halacha, nigleh, chassidus. It's mamash a machaya to see the spirit of what Yache [snorts] Kallah is from the first Yache Kallah in the times of the Gemara actually being implemented, which the Rebbe very much wanted. And to the bachurim, I want to tell you that being mishtatef in the Melaveh Malkah is something that the Rebbe personally requested when there was a farbrengen the Shabbos of Yache Kallah. The Rebbe would, of course, uh besides sending mashke, would send his choizer, Reb Yoel, to say over the sicha that was said at the farbrengen again here by the Melaveh Malkah. And we would be up late until they would come here and do that, and the Rebbe had a lot of nachas ruach from it. And there's the famous answer that he gave, I believe, to Reb Hershberg from Mexico City who said he was in Yache Kallah, and the Rebbe gave him a choizer schein on all the nachas that he was goirem with what he wrote there. We know that we are starting Shabbos Parshas Re'eh. Re'eh always falls out on Shabbos Mevorchim of Elul. And I believe it was the Rebbetzin who once said that the Rebbe is not afraid of anything except for chodesh Elul. And Elul does not have to be something you're afraid of in a way which makes you fearful, but it has to be something that you are concerned about in a way which makes you active. And I'll leave the mashpi'im to teach you the inyan of Anilo Dodi VeDodi Li, so there's the Lesatzes, there's the Le'eila, I just sneak previewed on the Dramachos, I think it's in this week's ma'amar, which in about uh 10 hours I will probably learn with my chaverusa, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtel in Berlin. We learn almost every single week the ma'amar from the Dramachos. But over there is something that's very, very chassidistic. And that is the Da'as Brachos said, "Re'eh Anochi nosein lifneichem hayom es habrachah ve'es haklalah." How was klalah translated? The simple English translation as a curse. Targum Onkelos is the same. But then there's another Targum, Targum Yonathan, which doesn't exactly call it a curse, calls it the an alternative. And the Rebbe has a whole hesber which I'm sure you will all learn when you'll be in Yeshiva. And those who are no longer in Yeshiva, when you'll take some time to learn it more be'iyun. But the Rebbe points out the difference between Targum Unkelus and Targum Yonathan as being the golus mentality and the geulah mentality. In the golus mentality, what you see that's not a bracha looks to you like a curse. In the geulah mentality, you see the potential because everything the Aibershter does is good for there to be good even in something that you don't appreciate. There's another inyan that I see a a connection between last week and this week. Last week we read Krias Shema, the first parsha. And this week we have the second parsha. And the every bar mitzvah bochur knows tfillin demadi olam machsiv bohu that the tfillin of the Ribono shel Olam have the words Emicho Am Yisrael echad ba'aretz. Klal Yisrael is the tfillin of the Ribono shel Olam. And if so, when it says that we have to put on tfillin, it's a siman that Magid B'rov Yaakov chok u'mishpatav, that um the Aibershter also puts on tfillin. So the Aibershter has his shel yad and his shel rosh of Klal Yisrael. Shel rosh is of course the ones who excel in learning Torah, and the shel yad are the more poshete, the the ones who are more body pale. And this is something which the uh which the um which the Rebbe brings down, that the Baal Shem Tov taught, but the Rebbe points out something so important. The Rebbe points out that in hilchos tfillin, you know that without a shel yad, you don't wear a shel rosh. Even if you reach for the shel rosh first, you go and you take the shaat to put it on. Without paula, you don't have any implementation of all of the shaarosh. Without the heart, without feeling, which is the shaat, you don't have all of the godliness of the mochin. As Rabbi Garelik alluded to before, also you can touch atzmus, but you have to bring it down to earth. And that's why there's another deek that the Rebbe says, that in the first parsha, first you say v'shinantam, then ukshartem. First you have to learn, then you have to do the mitzvahs. The second parsha says it the other way around. Because the first parsha is v'ahavta es Hashem Elokecha b'chol l'vavcha u'vchol nafsh'cha u'vchol me'odecha. The second parsha is im loy sishmu, v'sartem va'avadtem. We have the matzav of today. So, as long as you can get someone to first do a mitzvah you encounter a Yid, ukshartem es yadchem, get them to do a mitzvah, then you hope that you bring them to v'li madetem. If you're going to immediately try to get them involved in something that's acher to beyond them, you will lose them. And the Rebbe was very machshiv this. And finally, the last thing also to touch upon what my good chaver, Rabbi Yisrael Chaim Canter, said about today, going around like a Yid is making a statement. It's not like it used to be 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Everyone talks about anti-Semitism and is all worried about it. That's not our tafkid to talk about all day, and it's not our tafkid to think about all day. Our tafkid is to do something about it instead, by being positive, by making sure that we walk around proud and unafraid as Yidden, as Chassidim, as Chassidim of our Rebbe, we can make the most important statement that Jews need today everywhere in the world, which is the mitzvah that the Aibershter gave the Yidden more than any other mitzvah, not avas Hashem, ahavas Yisrael, shmiras Shabbos, and all the other mitzvahs. The mitzvah that we have in the Torah more than anything else is what? Not to be afraid from a brother of you know I'll tell you anything else. And what do they used to say and what do we see today is parsha? What is the Hebrews to want from you already? Just to be afraid of him. If you'll be afraid of him, you won't be afraid of anybody else. And therefore, I think that we have to look to these words the words that the Torah tells us and the way that the Rebbi explains it to know that these are words that lift off the page into Tishrei moon they should go deep inside us. We should not only hear them head and over dead head and they should go into our premeus. And they wish us all to help them that through doing all of these mitzvahs more yes yes yes yes yes with a 100 L and into the new year we're ready to be zaycher that they wish to will put before us brocha and whatever we were waiting for that doesn't seem like a brocha should be like the Targum Yerushalmi Targum Yonasan which is the mindset of Yerushalayim that we should be able to see all of the broches be any boss of mommies but they were nearly by niggle or my came to be a shame on you. I want to take this opportunity first of all uh because of my father to welcome our next speaker someone who went on a shlichus many many years ago. When the Rebbi sent him to a place to establish a yeshiva in a neighborhood in America that was mommies famous for being Arvas Aharas mommies. A lot of what comes across to American culture that's not kedusha that's not tahara emanates from that section of a major city. And that came that place a few blocks away a small yeshiva started. I wasn't the first helmet there, but I was probably from the second or third group. I was there in touch with my mouth. And the Yeshiva was budding what didn't even have a building yet. It was in the in in two trailers. One was the offices and one was the zal. But it was a budding Yeshiva that ever since shluchim bochurim and there it started to develop and develop and develop. And since then, the Yeshiva told me last year that I shouldn't speak so much about him. So this year I'm speaking instead about the Yeshiva. And the shlichus of the Rebbe which is I hope you'll be mychal because if not, then he'll do what he did last year and he'll give me a scolding, but I'm ready to take the risk. So the Yeshiva boruch Hashem grew and thousands of talmidim went through there. And they came in there one way and they left another way because the process brought what it means to have a chassidishe place where people learn all day and all night. And I remember that when the when the Yeshiva was about to become funded by the government, so they had to send a few Yeshivas from across America who have a group that they decide who's a real Yeshiva that the government should help to support it. And I remembered them speaking, which I was a little bochur, I was 12, 13 maybe at the time, and it was my job to bring them lunch. So I brought them in the lunch and then I heard some things the way they were talking amongst themselves which I will not repeat cuz the Yeshiva will get upset. But what I will say is that I'll never forget what they were saying. And it from that second on when I walked out of that room, I felt this chos to be in that Yeshiva. And I think it's a chos that even though it's not so easy for him to fly around like it once was, he decided after yes, no, back and forth that he will be mishtatef and made the tircha to come here. And And know how many of you are going into that Yeshiva or were in that Yeshiva, but all of you should listen as if you were in that Yeshiva and you'll understand why someone like me who was there 40 years ago for 3 years feels that it's a very special place. So therefore, I want you to please give the appropriate attention and respect