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What's Chai Elul? History and Reality - Rabbi Chaim Dalfin
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so tonight
actually today is a very special day in
the Jewish calendar
it's the 18th of Ellen
everyone here knows what's special about
18.
hi
what does high mean
life
to life to life right
so
today we celebrate the 18th day the high
day
of the month of elul the month of elul
is the preceding month to the high holy
days
and on this day in 17 in 1698 a very
great rabbi
and Sadiq holy person was born
his name was Rabbi Israel bao shemtov
right we call him he's known as the bow
shemto of the Holy balchemtov
sometimes we call them as the best
because the Hebrew letter is shintek
spell out belshamptov the best in
English
b-e-s-h-t okay
so he was born in 1698.
and there's another great Rabbi that was
born today and take a look at the
picture on the left or the right
whatever the rabbit with a big beard
here
is the name Schneider Zalman
borokovic his father was Baruch known as
the first Chabad rebe re rep Schneider
Zalman the founder of this Chabad house
because
his
great-great-great-grandson the rebbe
sent Rabbi Zach Williams was a friend of
mine from Yeshiva to hear
to make a shoe and a Chabad house an
institution and now his son label and
others are involved the whole family so
it's all an extension of the founder of
this scripture salmon and he was born on
the same day
on the same day in 1745.
so we celebrate two birthdays so first I
would like to say look I am everyone say
little hi I'm on water whatever whatever
you have the high we should have a
blessed year with good health
okay number one Health good health
Better Health good health
we should also have parnosa sustenance
livelihood
we should also have
Jewish Pride from children
grandchildren family and friends
and everything else that anyone here
needs
that the heart desires God should give
it to you because God has so much up
there
he doesn't have any shortages of
anything
so he's just open up the floodgates of
blessings for each and every one of us
and may this upcoming year
five seven eight four
tough Shin pay valid
which represents pigeon Redemption
the haitianas pay dalid is the first
letters of the Hebrew word pigeon which
means Redemption
may this year
we not only talk about mashiach but we
live to see the mashiach and to
experience the mashiach and mashiach
will take every Jew
to the to the land of Erich Israel
Jerusalem and he'll bring World Peace to
everyone
the non-jews to everyone
so may it be so in our days
now before we go into hail we have to
Singapore
Hasidic Gathering if I'm bringing we
sing the good name
right away
he's going for broke right from the
beginning okay
yeah yeah this is from where
from the hallelu
now we're going to say during the
holidays right Hallelujah
okay
again
[Applause]
[Music]
I can't leave
[Music]
I'm
so
what is special about these two
individuals
that the rabbis here
took a Labor Day
and a six o'clock or 6 30.
they decided to make Hasidic fabrenkin
the first time I must tell you it's the
first time I've ever started off a brain
in this early I gotta say I told him I
said the for bringing starts at six he
said six I said yeah six he said six he
said yeah six six o'clock I said yeah
six because in Brooklyn they start like
10 p.m
even last time we were here I think we
started eight or eight thirty but anyway
the the fact is that it's still the
special day the energy of this day of
hialo it's before dark it's right now
very very present here so what is
special about this day so let me give
you a little history and then we'll
we'll get more into it okay
the Jews the Jewish people
were always persecuted
okay
it's nothing new the persecution of
today goes back thousands of years
in 1648 and 49
there was a tyrant
then I think Bogart
hellmanninsky or hellmanninsky
and he was in the podolia region with
Poland is part of
and he made pogroms against our people
ravage death starvation illness all
kinds of things came about because of
this Terror
the Jewish people were picked at and
became very very depressed
why do you become depressed
because
no one wait wait at that time they were
depressed
the day but Hashem were not the Press
but at that time they were depressed why
were they depressed I'm not talking
about clinical depression I was talking
about sadness Melancholy and basically
they asked themselves a very important
question that I'm sure
people
sadness forget about the sadness being
sad
feeling there's no end to the
persecution where are we going to go
from here right we're always running
we're always on the run
I'm sure some of you are here from
Brooklyn
you know I grew up in a neighborhood
called East Flatbush which is near Crown
Heights and before that the Jews were in
Brownsville
and when Brownsville turned not Jewish
to put up mildly they ran to East New
York if the east of Europe they ran to
East flatbushed and they ran the
klanites and then they ran to
boroughbrook where I lived today right
we're always running so
what what happened
from 1648 to 1698 going into the 1700s
when the belshanto
came onto the scene
what happened was that the Jew asked
himself and herself a question where is
God
where is God
God you say with the chosen people
were your people and this is what
happens to what us that's a very good
question it's a difficult question
and because of this
it left an overall despondent feeling
amongst many Jews that's what I mean by
depressed
okay so besides being killed hurt
ravaged and everything else
there was this overall feeling just like
Jews had after the Holocaust
after the Holocaust many people who were
more involved
in Torah observance of Judaism in Poland
Hungary Russia etc etc what happened
they threw off their they threw away the
jewishness the Judaism and they said we
don't want this anymore we don't need it
because it doesn't help us anyway
okay and this was a very very difficult
period for us
so
God did us a favor and he and he sent an
individual called Israel balsamtebristro
the belshamptov
who said if you measure
God
and what God wants for the world
by the physical you have a very good
question
but if
you look at God and what God brings to
the world is spiritual right with love
and soul in Hebrew the nishama so
then it's a whole different bowl game
and he started to teach
the idea of of a soul that every Jew
every person every Jew has a soul and a
shama and the beauty of the nishama and
that the soul is not measured by how
much you know but rather by what you do
and who you are right and for that
matter the belsanto said even if you
practice little
and the soul never leaves a Jew and the
soul is always pristine and the soul is
always perfect
it's a matter of revealing the soul
and another teaching of the belshem was
to do it with joy as label said
who's depressed right he started to
teach us that because we don't
understand the soul and and we don't
have any perception of what soul is soul
is happy soul is good Soul doesn't get
fathomed by hellmanitsky's pogroms
even though there were programs and
there was a holocaust and there is
Despicable people in the world who want
to harm us
but the soul is not fathomed the soul
will go further if you access the soul
and you live with the soul this was a
basic teaching and what did the balship
do he brought together the common person
you know there were many people most
Jewish people at the time were not
learned
we didn't have books in English
translating Torah Judaism
you know and at that time if you were
studied in talmud and in Torah you were
a Jew
but if you could barely read then you
didn't know any Torah many people looked
down upon you nah it's nothing you're
saying either she's cornished in other
words means in Spanish nada
Fs in Hebrew zero
nothing right
balsamtov says you have it all wrong
your equation to begin with to begin
with
is a non-secuador we say in in advanced
mathematics and the theory of relatively
in such studies it's it's ridiculous
because you're trying to understand God
and soul and trying to understand God
from a perspective using a measuring
stick of the physical
spirituality is not measured by the
physical
spirituality is measured by the Soul by
the spiritual
and that's what he introduced and that
was a novelty a big big change a radical
change and that's why initially he was
chased and bothered and looked upon as
the villain But as time went on it
became the accepted mode of Jewish
experience
however
when the second Rabbi who was
celebrating his birthday the founder of
the Chabad movement
he
not only took this idea of soul
and he brought it to the common Folk
he said that everyone can have a deep
relationship with God and understand God
in other words dancing is good and
singing is good and clapping is
important it's all wonderful but how
about understanding God
and when you understand God then you can
become more Divine more Godly
so he opened up
the study of hasidism the Hasidic
movement you've heard of the Hasidic
movement hasidism is the philosophy that
the Hasidic movement studies and in our
case it's this top word called Tanya
Tanya is the Bible kind of of Hasidic
Judaism of Hasidic Judaism it's the book
called Tanya
and in the Tanya
it talks about
all issues and you know I I I I teach
day and four days a week students who
live in Israel actually online and Tanya
and it's fascinating to see the the
ideas that this Rabbi touches upon
from the metaphysical to the
psychological so right now you know what
you know what we're learning about now
sadness that a person has in their life
from various
for for various reasons be it you know
material reasons be it spiritual reasons
then he looks at the the same Rabbi
looks at this sadness
is it causing a psychological
um
contradiction
in you
where you feel on one hand hey I pray I
learn I do what I'm supposed to and all
of a sudden I act like an animal who am
I
well the real self stand up
you're all adults here I hope so I'll
tell you an adult story
but it sounds exciting
it's a story we heard in the Yeshiva by
our teachers it's not even a story it's
a kind of
you you've heard of the great
philosopher Aristotle
Aristotle oh my gosh
father one of the fathers of philosophy
this Aristotle
who preached intellect that the epitome
of climbing the ladder is to
intellectualize to use your mind right
I'm I'm just I'm watering down
Aristotle's full philosophical beliefs
but that's pretty much in a nutshell one
of his main ideas
so this Aristotle who every day taught
students and he taught them to be
intellectual and to study and to think
and to intellectualize one day they
caught Aristotle doing something very
unkosher I'll leave it to your
imagination
that's it what was it
I didn't drink enough to tell you what
it was
so they came to this stuff and they said
Aristotle Aristotle
you'd understand you're the man
and here you act like Caillou course
grub individual
you
at one man you
listen to his answer
his answer was I am really Aristotle the
intellect and the great philosopher
but just at that time I wasn't acting
like Aristotle but but really I'm
Aristotle
now if you believe that I'll sell you
the Brooklyn Bridge
okay
my dear friends
philosophy
does not lead you to divinity
Divinity godliness being a Godly Man is
a whole different experience
not that philosophy is not important not
that intellect is not important
but it has an end
Torah yeah this guy Judaism
Soul nashama that's the that's that's
Emma's that's the real truth
because if a person lives that way
you won't find them in an uncompromised
position doing all kinds of foolish
things
it's one we don't act Godly that we can
end up in big trouble
so so
hear it listen to this
it's not that there's a question like I
asked the question about Aristotle
now you understand that Aristotle was
being himself
a human being
and a human being is apt to failure
that's the way it is
and God understands it but at the same
time God says there's a way to re rise
and overcome human animalistic
Tendencies of All Sorts from eating
sleeping and everything else
and that's by learning Torah especially
the teachings of khasidas that the
balship and the balakanya Salman
the author of Latonya introduced and
this
is something
one should pursue
you know why you should pursue it
because it's going to bring you goodness
and more happiness and more success and
the most important thing you'll really
be a mensch
you'll really be a mensch
you know we say during the prayers in
the morning one of the Praises
which means
forever for eternity one should always
be a man a God-fearing man that's the
literal meaning there is an
interpretation
the first thing
hey Adam
be a mansion
God-fearing
religious
is the
expression of being a mensch
not that religion takes a second seat it
doesn't
but the idea of being a mensch
is
is most important I'll give you an
example
I had a teacher who's passed on he was
the the greatest
understanding of
in our generation and maybe in most
Generations
his name was Khan
so I heard a very
nice
no
after his passing I wrote a few books
about him very special person
so listen to this
he wasn't blessed with children
so people would ask him to
to come to their bris if they had a boy
or to name name a child
and also to to there is a ritual called
opinion haben
30 days after a baby boy is born first
born only the firstborn boy you you do a
ceremony called pigeon
Redemption of the Sun
where you give the kohane
amount of money and and you pick up the
baby the baby has a whole process a very
beautiful process anyway
listen to this
someone came to him
and asked him if he could be you need a
Cohen you need to write the Cohen is the
Jewish priest you need a coin to do that
ceremony Rabbi Khan was a Cohen so he
was a fifth you know if you go to a
levite or an Israelite they can't be the
individual Redeeming the baby you need a
coin
so
someone comes to his office
with the baby I guess they had arranged
it before and he says
I'm here and I have the baby I'd like to
come in for us to do the ritual you
don't need a menu for it by the way you
don't need a million
usually there is a million but you don't
need a menu for it
so
he says one moment and he asks him to go
out
and he walks out of his office
and he does the ceremony it took three
minutes four minutes a very quick
ceremony
outside
in the hallway
to his office
so later somehow I don't know how
someone asked like why did you do that
like you know your office a little more
spacious
why do it in the hallway
so he said
that there was another individual in the
room who he worked with who also wasn't
blessed with children
and he didn't want to embarrass him
now you understand he himself didn't
have any children
so about himself
he wasn't thinking
other individual who worked with him who
also didn't have children if he's doing
a ceremony of redeeming a child in front
of the other person he felt it was an
insensitivity
you see isn't that
tremendous lesson immensely kite and
human decency and sensitivity
and I know both individuals
the other person I
would not be embarrassed but Rabbi Khan
felt this is not appropriate
I'm just showing you that
yiddishkite Judaism observance of Torah
leads a person to being kind of the
perfect man the perfect match
hi