Rosh Hashanah

Fol­low­ing the far­bren­gen on motzaei Rosh Hashana 5725 (1964 ), R. Zal­man an­nounced in his usual tune, “The seder will now be as fol­lows: first we will daven maariv, then the Rebbe Shlita will re­cite hav­dala, and af­ter­wards he will dis­trib­ute kos shel bracha. No one should push as per the in­struc­tions of the new Vaad Hame­sader ( or­ga­niz­ing com­mit­tee), and ev­ery­one should fol­low it. ”

Sud­denly, the Rebbe closed his eyes and an­nounced in the same tune, “The seder will now be as fol­lows: first we will en­ter the new year, then we will learn a lot of Torah – lots of nigleh and Chas­sidus, and as a re­sult we will ful­fill many mitzvos and with hidur. Even be­fore all of this, Hashem will give us a ke­siva vachasima tova , a good and sweet year in all as­pects, with chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, lots of money, bless­ings, suc­cess, sal­va­tion and com­fort, and it should be a good year both phys­i­cally and spir­i­tu­ally. ” And the Rebbe con­cluded, “This is the in­struc­tion of the new Vaad Hame­sader, and ev­ery­one should fol­low it!” Smiles over­took the room.

In his old age Reb Chaim Avra­ham, the Al­ter Rebbe’s son, went to the Tzemach Tzedek to hear him blow the sho­far. The Rebbe Ma­ha­rash (the Tzemach Tzedek’s son) asked him: “Why do you trou­ble your­self? You can make your own minyan to hear the tekios.”

“The po­suk states: תרועה יודעי העם אשרי – Happy are the peo­ple who know [the sound of] the Teruah⁵ — who know the Teruah, not who blow the Teruah,” he replied.

5. Tehillim 89:16. ↩

At tekias sho­far on the sec­ond day of Rosh Hashanah, I re­mem­bered the time in Lubav­itch when the Rebbe Rashab had al­ready dav­ened in the large zal. It was af­ter the prepa­ra­tions, af­ter the weep­ing - dur­ing the Haftorah and sub­se­quent recita­tion of the pe­sukim - I saw first -hand how the Rebbe ar­ranged his tallis and said the bra­chos.

At a chas­sidic far­bren­gen once, they reached the con­clu­sion, namely: af­ter all the ka­vanos - the med­i­ta­tions and in­ten­tions - one must do the mitz­vah with kab­balas ol.

And when one vi­su­al­izes this in the same mat­ter and, it could be said, in the same place, then, Boruch Hashem, my zeide’s words res­onate: “The crowns progress down­ward one from an­other. ”³⁰

In gen­eral, my zeide was stead­fast in the con­cept of “ Rebbe of the gen­er­a­tion.”

30. See Likkutei Torah, beginning of Parshas Korach; Sefer HaMaamarim 5665, p. 260. In this context, that the Rebbeim are extensions of each other. ↩

The Rebbe cus­tom­ar­ily dav­ened the first Maariv of Rosh Hashanah in the small zal. In 5668 or 5669 [1907 or 1908] I was stand­ing on a bench near the wealthy chos­sid Shmuel Gu­rary. Drenched with tears he held a small prayer book and lis­tened to ev­ery word that came from the Rebbe’s holy mouth. The Rebbe re­cited Ya’aleh veYavo . The older stu­dents stand­ing nearby com­mented, “He is a very dear friend of the Rebbe, and when the Rebbe cries, he cries, too. ”

How­ever, what ex­cited R. Yis­roel was to be at the Rebbe’s side and as­sist him.

Ev­ery Rosh Hashanah since ar­riv­ing in the US, the Rebbe would walk with hordes of chas­sidim from 770 to the Brook­lyn Botan­i­cal Gar­dens, where they would re­cite tash­lich over a pond. On Rosh Hashanah 5717 (1956), there was a tor­ren­tial down­pour, but this did not stop the Rebbe and the chas­sidim from walk­ing to tash­lich. Drenched to the bone, they ar­rived at the park to find the gate locked. The Rebbe was not de­terred and de­cided to scale the en­clo­sure. R. Yis­roel, al­ways at the Rebbe’s side, of­fered the Rebbe his help. The Rebbe de­clined, but gave R. Yis­roel his sid­dur to hold while he climbed the wall.

One of the baalei teshuva who R. Eliyahu brought closer to Yid­dishkeit states that “he is like my fa­ther (spir­i­tu­ally)!”

Once, on Rosh Hashana night, an un­fa­mil­iar man emerged from a car out­side R. Eliyahu’s house; he car­ried a satchel on his back. He in­quired if R. Eliyahu Lip­skar in­deed lived there. R. Eliyahu did not re­buke him for his trans­gres­sion of the fes­ti­val, or for the dis­tur­bance. Rather, he in­vited him in­side and in­cluded him in the yom tov meals. This in­di­vid­ual ul­ti­mately be­came an ob­ser­vant Jew. A baal teshuva as­so­ci­ated with R. Eliyahu re­counted that ob­serv­ing that in­ci­dent on Rosh Hashana shaped his con­nec­tion with R. Eliyahu.

The ven­er­a­ble chos­sid, R. Nochum of Radomishl, was present when the Tzemach Tzedek re­cited maftir on Rosh Hashanah — with the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash stand­ing nearby — and said: “El hanaar hazeh his­palolti – It is for this child that I prayed.”¹³

13. Shmuel I 1:27 . It was evident that the Tzemach Tzedek was thinking of the Rebbe Maharash when he recited Chanah’s words in the Haftorah. ↩

In the sum­mer of 5674 (1914 ) my brother be­came ill with tu­ber­cu­lo­sis. We brought him from Homil to Kiev for surgery, and a year later he un­der­went an­other op­er­a­tion. Fol­low­ing a third op­er­a­tion he was very weak. (Peo­ple were given seda­tives to drink be­fore op­er­a­tions in those times.) I wrote a pidyon and sent it to the Rebbe’s sum­mer home (datche) in Zal­sha. Hashem helped; an open­ing de­vel­oped there and the phlegm grad­u­ally drained. When the doc­tor — Kostritzky was his name — ob­served this, he said it was the first time he had ever seen this.

I brought my brother to Lubav­itch for Rosh Hashanah 5675 (1914 ). The war had be­gun on Tisha B’ Av, 5674 and the flow of guests was im­mense. We were un­able to have yechidus, and at the end of Yom Kip­pur we had to leave since we lacked funds to re­main through Sukkos. As men­tioned ear­lier, I was in the Rebbe’s din­ing room to break the fast, and af­ter­wards — when the Rebbe left the room — I told the Reb­bet­zin that we had to leave. She let me wait in the small room be­tween the din­ing room and the room where the Rebbe held yechidus, and when the Rebbe came out of his room very late, I said to him — for the Rebbe knew me quite well — “This is my brother. ”

“This is the one whose leg hurt?” the Rebbe asked.

Isn’t this ex­tra­or­di­nary? There is no way to es­ti­mate how many peo­ple passed through that year from af­ter Shavuos un­til motzaei Yom Kip­pur!

When the pos­si­bil­ity be­came known that the Rebbe Rashab might come to Podobranka for Rosh Hashanah, 5677 (1916), my zeide said he would run there on foot to see him.