The Day Gershom Scholem Spoke About the Rebbe

All right. So, here's a story. I was speaking in Sydney, Australia. This a number of years ago actually was Gimmel Thomas. I think Giml was on a shabas. Gimmel Thomas. And um so I was speaking in Sydney, Australia. A guy comes over to me and he says to me, tells me his name and based on his last name, he thought I would react, but I wasn't it wasn't clicking for me. It wasn't ringing a bell. So, he he points out to me, he saw that I wasn't registering. He was like, "My great uncle was Gershin Shalom." Everyone knows who Gersian Shalom was. Gein Shalom was the professor of Cababala at Hebrew University. Gein Shalom was a Yaka, a German Jew. At least publicly, outwardly, officially, he was not a big believer. He was not so religious to put it mildly. He studied, you know, like biblical criticism, how they studied the Bible as an academic subject devoid of any kaduca. So he was the one who innovated the study of Cabala, specifically of Zhar as a as an academic study with devoid of any reverence or kadusha whatsoever. So um in fact I'll tell you a story within a story. This actually I heard from from Joseph Tushkin who heard it from Herbert Winer who wrote nine and a half mystics. Herbert Winer when he was a college student at Hebrew University he took Gerin Shalom's cabalistic studies class and in the middle of the class there was this named Yehudain. He was the son of Radati or Hershel Chernag who was I think it was going back to the times of the Byov at the end of his life he lived in anyways he had a son of Ram yuhuda. So anyways here these are the characters of Yehu. This labavature sort of like troublemaker rolls into the Hebrew University class of Gian Shalom teaching like cababalistic studies and Herbert Winer from Nine and a half mystics is a student. Anyways this is not even the story that I wanted to tell you but starts harassing Shalom and he says to him no what's the difference between aid and a cabalistic studies professor? I don't know what's the difference between aid and a cabalistic studies professor. So he says it's a difference between the balabos and the accountant. A business owner and his and his bookkeeper. What what's the difference? The accountant, the bookkeeper, his whole day he's immersed in numbers. And every one of those numbers res represents a dollar, a penny, and he knows exactly how much to the penny came in today, how much to the penny went out today. He this is what he lives with. At the end of the day though, he closes the books. He goes home and he doesn't have that money. It's not his money. He He can track it all. He can tell you exactly to the penny what came in, what went out, but it's not his money. He doesn't have the money. The business owner, the Balabos, he doesn't know exactly to the penny what went in today, what went out today. May maybe once a month he gets a general concept of it, but it's his money. It belongs to him. So he says he says the cabalistic studies professor. He's like the accountant. He's Bucky Osbos. He knows every single word, every single letter of Zer, but he doesn't make it his own. He doesn't live according to it. So it's not his money. What does he know from Z? You know, you know, Khalifa, you know, maybe the first few, you know, because it's in the he knows a few things, right? But it's his he owns it. He's like the business owner. Anytime he needs to spend that money, he could spend it because he makes the Cabala his life. He lives according to Cabala. Okay. And he goes, "That's not the story I want to tell you." So this guy in Sydney, David Scholamy, tells me this story. He says he after the Yam Kipper war, he starts hanging around Labavich in Melbourne, just taking some classes, and his father, a good Yak, a good German Jew, starts freaking out. Oh no, you fell in with these. They're going to brainwash you. They're going to make you a radical. So he said they sent me to my great uncle the family intellectual >> Gishin Shalom >> to deprogram me. >> Yeah. So he says I went to Shalim. I went toika to the old city to my great uncle's apartment and we're sitting and we're talking and he's like sort of he says he was very like cold very intellectual and he said the the whole conversation was in German because German is the language of academics. if you're speaking intelligently, you speak in German. And he's grilling me. And I realize as he's grilling me, he's trying to decide whether or not I'm even worth saving because if if I'm not intelligent, then whatever, who cares, you know, let let him do whatever he wants to do. So, he's trying to determine first of all if I'm smart enough to be worth saving. So, he's asking me questions and I'm answering and and I could tell that he feels that my answers are good enough that, you know, it's it's worth it for him to continue talking to me. So, at at one point in the conversation, he says to me, and I realized that this is like the the ultimate test. He's if if I don't answer this question right, then he's giving up on me. So, he says to me, "Do you even know the secret of Labavich?" He says, "You're hanging around Labavich. You're so enamored with them. Do you even know the secret, by the way, and I should tell you?" He told me, he says, "I didn't become a Labavager then. I'm not a laber now. My My father was just freaking out." He's like, "I didn't become a Labavager, but I was hanging around them. That was scary enough." Right? So, he says, his great uncle, Garish Scholam, the professor of cababalistic studies from Hebrew University. He says to him, he says, "Do you do you even know the secret of Labavich?" He said, 'I thought a second. I knew it was an important question. And I said, 'Yes. Uh, they have a general. They have a general. So, I I stopped him in the middle of him telling me the story. I said, "That's that's remarkable that you felt that that was what was unique about Labavich." Like, how did that why did that strike you? He says, "Well, you know, I studied history in college and I see things in terms of nations and history." And to me that that was clear that that this this model of leadership, you know, the Reb's power and and and ability to, you know, to to to mobilize and to to send him. And so I said, "Yeah, they they they have a general." And I saw in in in like military terms, not not just a king, a general, somebody could, you know, order the troops. They have a general. So he says he sort of smiled as if to like give me somewhat, you know, semi-approval, but he couldn't let it be right. He couldn't let it be the ultimate answer. And he says, "No, like almost, but not quite." He says, "No, he has an army." So I ask you, "What's the secret of Labavage?" You say they have a general. No, not they have a general. He meaning the Reb has an army. Now you say whatever you want about Gershin Shalom, but I've thought about this story so many times. There are a lot of people who claim to be leaders. Show me your army. Show me one person who will devote their life to your marching orders. So to say they have a general, yeah, that's good. But really what's much more impressive than the fact that the Reb was a general is that the conduct themselves as an army who follow the orders of the general.