Rabbi Asks Yeshiva University Students: "Why Did You Come to Crown Heights?"

i understand that barack hashem you've been having a wonderful shabbos yeah [Applause] a lot of work goes into organizing a shabbos like this i uh i was not here i was in my makamashlikas in five towns yeah was there some applause for five towns all right anyone from cedarhurst yeah right here okay a linesman i'm not really i'm not from cedarhurst i was sent i was sent to cedarhurst you know most shlokem get sent out of new york i got sent to new york and uh also most lucam gets sent away from communities where they have a infrastructure of torah and uh hashem and my mother is to the matera learning siddhis with the froome world which is a deeply deeply gratifying schliches and when i heard that this shabbaton was happening i said this is right up my alley this is a beautiful thing because the interest and the curiosity and the excitement coming from the toyota world in siddhis khabad today i think is more than at any point ever ever in history and it's only growing and this this shabbaton is a wonderful uh case in point evidence of that fact okay more applause all right yeah okay all right so uh and it's a schoola they say for parnosa although the hela kerosene erzadek said three lav dafkas lav daft but rather anytime loved afghan about the balshamptov really about any tadik lavdovka school for parnos for whatever you want a blank check so uh i'll tell you a story there was a chosen the well-known hosted obamacare snapfish in russia named ramendo fotafas and he was coming to the rabbit this is after he got out of russia and he was living in arts israel in fachabad and he was coming to new york for tishrei to spend tishrei with the rabbit and on the plane he was seated next to a young man who for all appearances was not religious in any way shape or form and this young man started to strike up a conversation with mendel and he he noticed he had like a broken hebrew sort of and uh with a french accent he explained that he was he was from paris he was from france and he was studying in the university in paris and he had been to uh to israel and now he was going to new york and he was asking that mendel all types of philosophical questions or he was attempting in the in the shared language that they had so uh mendel told this young man i don't know the answers that you're for the to the questions you're asking but you're going to new york go to brooklyn go to crown heights go to 770 eastern parkway and uh i think you'll get your questions answered over there so that mendel didn't see this young man after the flight he went to crown heights and he spent tishrei everyone knows i'm sure everyone's heard what tishri by the rabbi meant the the elation the the absolute otherworldly quality of it the heavenly quality of it and after tishrei you come you land you come back down to earth back to business and uh so that mendel went to go fundraising he used to fundraise he come to america at fundraise for the yeshivas so he was traveling around and he went out to california with his uh his partner his fundraising partner uh rabbi reichik schmold of dreichik and they they traveled around they had their uh their circuit they would go around the western states and they would fundraise and they did this for a few months and then kiss slave mandel would come back to new york talking now tishrei has been slaves so three months later he came back to new york to spend one more shabbos with the rabbit and then from there he would fly back to eretz's throw so these were in the days of yehidus one-on-one audiences with the rabbit and that mandel schedules his and everyone saw that abby's room was that part of the the shabbos or out of shabbos you're familiar with there's an area called garnet there's ghanaian so when siddhan would wait for yakida so when it was close to their turn they'd be sitting in an area called ganidnatakte and the mendel looks and who's he's sitting next to this french college kid is sitting he was sitting next to him on a plane three months ago now he's sitting next to him so he says what are you doing here he says you told me i have these deep questions about life so uh you said the address 770 eastern parkway so i made it i'm here so that mother was taken aback he sees this young man go into yucatas and the duration of this could vary could vary from a few minutes too much longer in this particular case the this was going on for quite some time and when this would go on for that long amount of time there was a amazing secretary of the rabbi whose job it was to check that everything was okay we have a label growner so rabbi groener opened the door to check to see what's going on why is this yohidis with this college kid taking so long and the mendel got curious he wanted to see you know what's what are they talking about after all he sat next to this kid he was asking philosophical questions about about freedom of choice and about predestination you know philosophical stuff like a college kid likes to talk about so that mendel's curious what's going on in there it's going on a long time this this kid is sitting with the rabbit so as rabbit groaner opens the door to peek in and make sure everything's okay mendel cranes his his neck around the the opening of the door and he peeks in and he says in telling the story i looked in and i saw for a half a second the greatest gilloy the greatest revelation of the rabbit that i've seen in my life he said what did i see i looked in and i saw the rebbe is seated at his desk with a tanya open in front of him and across from him facing him this college kid is sitted seated at the other side of the desk with a tanya open in front of him and they're facing each other like cavrus and then that i've been nodded to rabbit groaner everything's okay robert gonna close the door that's it he said remember said i saw it for half a second he said i want to tell you something i saw the rabbit by napoleon's march you know that was the climax of yom kippur at the end of neila after the victorious shayfer blast has sounded and there's the the elation right the napoleon's march the the song of victory and the rebel would dance and stand on his chair and this was a gilroy this is a great revelation the mentor said i saw that the pure joy the bliss of rejoicing with the torah akafi's by the rabbi he said i saw that all the times where the rabbit was revealed in the most spectacular way but i never saw such a revelation of that as for that half a second seeing how the rebbe sits at his desk with a tanya open in front of him facing a college kid learning so that's a story i know that a lot of my uh i'll say colleagues or friends are curious what are you guys doing here why did washington heights come to crown heights what are you what are you looking for you have nothing better to do and i even know people who who wonder you know if it was the good old days and everyone who's been to crown heights understands what i mean by the good old days and you understand what we mean when we say before gimel thomas and after gamotamas and why we describe it that way but what brings young men who have a bit busy lives and they have plenty to do and they have plenty to learn and there's no lack of shitem there's no lack of of jewish activity where they're coming for what what's drawing them i understand if it were the good old days if the rabbi were giving out if there were dollars if they were and everyone here knows that if this were the good old days i promise you there would have been some acknowledgment in the fabregan of this group whether explicitly or you had to read between the lines but there would have certainly been an acknowledgement of of such a group and in the presence of the fabrega but this is not uh then this is now what's drawing people here more than ever as i mentioned more than ever so i'll tell you something and this is something that's so hard to convey this is the biggest misconception about khabad and not the misconception held by our enemies but the misconception held by our friends the misconception popularly often held by our friends is that khabad is a wonderful social services organization acute of outreach organization they're there for you a humanitarian aid organization so whether it's uh a fromaged who needs choline with kugel and kishka and shabas in thailand or it's somebody who's just experienced a natural disaster a tornado a flood chabad has enough israel to be there to take care of you humanitarian social services and that's all true but that's just a tight saw that's just a symptom that's a simmon not a like we say in learning that's the outer expression of something the fact that uh that that that will run to go put on filling with a stranger or to bring kala to a to a tourist to a guest who does to staying in a hotel room that's not the essence that's the expression of the essence the essence is there's something called teres accidents there's something called tanya and there's a pedigramatic base of tanya which is the lathe the heart of tanya which is all about ava siddhis khabad is kashmir that's what it is it's holy information and when you learn this information and you digest this truth one of the things that makes you do is be sugar for all but then you get misdiagnosed as a social services organization or humanitarian humanitarian aid or kid over outreach when that's the tight saw of a world view that's deeper than deeper than deep why people come to crown heights and why people come to chabad it's not for the child it's not for the cougar it's not for a good time you know why they come to learn the truth to have their deepest philosophical questions answered to encounter the rebbe's world view meaning purpose why we're here what's life all about the panemias like that french college kid sitting learning tanya becca with the rabbi in his room you know the frida kahraba says about the maggid the maggid was the successor of the balshemptiv the balshamp had 60 shishem students the margin was the the ultimate student and became his mokhim his successor the faith says something very interesting about the relationship between the baal shem tov and the magid and how the magic became um in the magic not through miracles or transcendental acts that cannot be explained or understood did the baal shem tov take a choir bring to him the market you understand not that the balshempta was able to be a miracle worker and he's able to blow away the maget and the market said whoa this is crazy i can't can't explain this can't understand this this is pyrotechnics absolute spectacular wonderful parting the red sea this is better than uh this is better than universal city studio tours blown away no but rather that's a mouthful the maggot was searching for the essence of the point of the inner meaning of wisdom meaning the core truth the deepest truth the market was looking for the deepest deepest deepest truth his whole life he just wanted somebody to tell him the reality of when he found that by the balsam is ergevorn zeiner he became his people are looking for truth people are looking for the atsum the kudus the inner core it's not enough and and and it's the younger it's the younger people who are insistent upon this it's not enough that i learn toyota for the kedusha of it so for kadusa i learned gomorrah me a rambam with a kiss of mishnah that's for kedusha and then for at symphony if i want real practical wisdom that's relevant i'll go on youtube i'll watch a jordan peterson video they'll find out what life's about the youth will not stand for that we're looking for the truth and if i can find it if i can find it anywhere then i'm going to go there and today every single one of you can be that college kid sitting learning because the rabbit gave us the rabbit gave us my mother that he gave us the egress the igress the egress is a leanwood it's worthy of of study everything that ever wrote that is revealing to you the essence of truth what life's about why we're here what it's all about we're not here for a show we're not here for a good time we're not here for excitement there's plenty of that in the world today we're here for the inner core of truth that we find in in the rabbi's message to our daughter and it's personal tell you one last story and it's a story that many of you probably already know about the balatanya in prison there was a non-jewish official government official who was very interested in the altar ebb and used to come around and ask the alpharetta questions and at one point this non-jewish official asked the al-taraba what's shot that after the sin of the tree of knowledge god comes and he says to adam where are you god isn't omniscient he has to ask where are you and the al-taraba says he didn't want to scare him and the non-jew said to the al-taraba that's what rashi says i want to know what you say so clearly this fellow whoever he was he knew his stuff he said that's that's what ashi says he didn't want to scare him he wanted to open up the conversation break the ice like we say he says but i want to know what you say so before the al-taraba answered the altar says to this non-jew do you believe that everything in torah is relevant to every person in every time and in every place and this non-jew says yes i do believe that was very relieved because he knew at this point already that the entire imprisonment and interrogation was not because of what was going on down here in the terrestrial realm but it was actually a manifestation and a lower level of a heavenly case in the heavenly court a kitrug and the best in shall myla that he was being accused of proliferating titus of al-shamdev too much so he understood that the real case was whether or not the teachings of the balsham should be spread out in the world so he was relieved when he asked this non-jewish government official do you believe that toyota is applicable to every person every place at every time and the person said yes i do believe that he was relieved because that is one of the core teachings of the balshemptuv one of the core principles of titusville champtov is that everything in toyota is relevant to every person at every time and every place so the the the balatani was very relieved from that so then he tells the this non-jew asked him the question he says well i'll tell you what it means he says you know a person lives such and such many years and he named a number and it was the exact number of years of this person asking the question it was his exact age and god comes to him and says to him ayaka where are you well haltman where are you what are you up to at this point you lived this many this many years months days hours seconds that were allowed to you to accomplish your life's mission how's it going let's check the progress bar how far along are you and that was the answer like i said a well-known story story we often tell on you test kiss live on the the goula the redemption when the altar got out of prison but i just want to emphasize one detail there that i don't think always gets the right amount of emphasis to me to me what's the takeaway of the story that everything in toyota is personal and that the altar sat in prison and suffered in order to be victorious in bringing about a breakthrough in the world where it was acceptable to believe that every detail in toyota is speaking about me right now right here you know there was a guy was in a hot air balloon and he got blown off course he got lost so he couldn't figure out how to get back to the base so he lowered the hot air balloon a little bit about 100 meters off the ground so he could start to look for people he sees a guy standing in front of a house he screams down to him hello down there do you see me you guys look so oh wait what's that he says help me i'm lost it's okay how do i help you it's the guy in the hot air balloon says where am i so the guy on the ground says you're in a hot air balloon i should call you right says yeah i know i know i'm not ever look what's my location where am i like in relation to to to the ground the guy says you're about a hundred meters up again like can you describe for me my location where i'm located right now he's like oh yeah yeah you're right over my house he sees it's like not going anywhere so the guy in the hot air balloon says can i ask you something sir he says yeah go ahead are you a rabbi the guy in the ground's like yeah yeah i am a rabbit how do you know i'm a rabbi so the guy up in the hot air balloon says because from the moment i met you everything you've told me has been 100 true and totally irrelevant to my situation [Applause] that gets the biggest applause so this is what i want to tell you we're not tolerant anymore today especially the young people are not tolerant anymore today of truth that demands to be listened to just because it's the truth without being taught and shown how it's relevant we don't want to be satisfied simply learning toyota because we know it's true of course it's true we want to see how it's true to each of us in this time in this place at this juncture in our lives with this nassalian that we're struggling with right now with our personality with our background with our struggles our challenges our strengths our talents our calling in life so you ask what brings a group of young people to crown heights for shabbos what are they looking for and what do they find my opinion what are they looking for and what are they finding sid this is a word that can use a word like i said this it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people but i'm going to translate it in plain english for 2022. we want truth that is relevant that is personal that speaks to us compassionately respectfully where we don't have to hide any part of ourselves where everything can be examined and understood and used in our mission that's what we're looking for and that is what i believe has drawn each one of you to this room tonight into this shabbos in this place you are looking for truth you're looking for depth that is relevant and personally meaningful you can applaud yourselves go ahead applaud yourselves you made a significant step by being here tonight don't stop don't stop looking for how toyota is speaking to you looking tanya looking look what this is my mother i'm looking the egress look wherever you find it but don't stop looking okay good luck again thank you [Applause]