Simchas Torah

Reb Groinem, the mash­pia in Lubav­itch, told how one Sim­chas Torah , when they called the Al­ter Rebbe to re­cite the pe­sukim of Atah Hor­eisah , they used the terms: “Adoneinu Mor­einu Ve­R­abbeinu – Our Mas­ter, Teacher and Rabbi. ” The Rebbe’s face glowed, so, later on they re­peated the phrase.

The next day they over­heard the Rebbe pac­ing in his room. “ Adoneinu Mor­einu Ve­R­abbeinu, Adoneinu Mor­einu Ve­R­abbeinu” — he re­peated bit­terly, again and again. “If I had had a pit I would have buried my­self alive. ”

“What’s this?” they later asked him. “Ev­ery­one saw the Rebbe’s face light up!”

“When af­flic­tions are sent from Heaven, we must ac­cept them with love, ” came the an­swer.

At one point dur­ing Sim­chas Torah , 5685 (1924 ), in Leningrad, the Rebbe Ray­atz ex­claimed pas­sion­ately, “What sort of chos­sid sleeps un­til nine in the morn­ing and, al­ready by ten, has fin­ished dav­en­ing, eaten break­fast, and is strolling along Nevesky Street (Leningrad’s main thor­ough­fare), di­rect­ing his eyes at the wrong places? With the no­tion that by wear­ing a kapotah and gar­tel he is a chos­sid. Or, he imag­ines, by giv­ing three rubles [to the Rebbe], he is a chos­sid. Now three rubles are three rubles — but that won’t do it.

“R. Hil­lel (Par­itcher) once said that he doesn’t like one who strayed and did teshu­vah — such a per­son went far astray, and who knows what sort of teshu­vah he did?

“For sure, strip­ping one­self naked is not the in­ten­tion; but there is a con­cept of con­fess­ing one’s mis­deeds.

“In truth — there’s a ques­tion: How can we un­der­stand the pre­cept, In the place where baalei teshu­vah stand, per­fect tzad­dikim are un­able to stand?⁵⁹ This one ate pupiks (giz­zards ) — while the other one learned Torah and dav­ened! The an­swer is: He is not the same per­son; he is some­one else.”⁶⁰

And the Rebbe turned to a young man from Kher­son liv­ing in Mos­cow: “It’s not you ... You must take upon your­self ‘di­vrei chavrus’;⁶¹ you will give a Kid­dush on Shab­bos Bereishis.

“Ev­ery­one must take upon him­self ‘di­vrei chavrus’ that he will not sleep past seven in the morn­ing (an early hour for Leningrad’s win­ters, when sun­rise is at nine). ”

59. Berachos 34b. ↩
60. He has transformed himself entirely. See also Rambam, Hilchos Teshuvah 2:4: "The way of teshuvah is … saying, 'I am someone else and not the same person who did those actions. " ↩
61. A term borrowed from the days of the Mishna, when there were conditions to be considered a "chaver" (a Jew of integrity who could be trusted regarding maaser [tithes] and ritual purity). ↩

In 5749 (1988), the last Sim­chas Torah of R. Yis­roel’s life, he came to the Rebbe’s hakafos af­ter many l’chaims. As al­ways, he and the Rebbe shared a lively in­ter­change, and at one point, the Rebbe handed him his hand­ker­chief. (When his son Sholom joked later that he would now have a pre­cious in­her­i­tance af­ter 120 years, R. Yis­roel replied, “No, the hand­ker­chief will go with me. ” When he un­ex­pect­edly passed away later that year, it was in­deed laid over his face in his fi­nal rest­ing place.)

My zeide said that the Rebbeim dis­liked when peo­ple spoke to them of their wrong­do­ings, but pre­ferred in­stead to dis­cuss Chas­sidus. Yet in a Sim­chas Torah far­bren­gen in 5685 (1924 ) the Rebbe spoke at length about viduy de­varim (ver­bal con­fes­sion) — and peo­ple be­came baalei teshu­vah.³⁵

A yunger­man from Nevel told me that his in­fant child, asleep at home, suf­fo­cated one night (may G-d pro­tect us ). The Rebbe was in Leningrad, they told him. Ar­riv­ing in Leningrad the yunger­man was in­formed that the Rebbe had al­ready left for Mos­cow. And in Mos­cow he learned that the Rebbe had gone home to Ros­tov. (This was, I be­lieve, in the win­ter of 5683 (1923).) When he went to Ros­tov for yechidus, the Rebbe told him, “If peo­ple knew how good it was to tell ev­ery­thing — lit­er­ally, ev­ery­thing — once in six months, once in a year, it would be truly good. ”

35. See above: The Rebbe Rayatz, #12, 13. ↩

On Sim­chas Torah 5679 (1918) a far­bren­gen was held at the home of the Rebbe’s son, the Rebbe Ray­atz. The ta­ble had al­ready been bro­ken and the Rebbe Rashab was sit­ting in the mid­dle of the house on a round stool, a kresleh. “Quiet!” he called out. “We are talk­ing of the lofti­est mat­ters!”

In mid­dle, his daugh­ter-in-law, Reb­bet­zin Nechama Dina, ap­proached him and asked, “Shver, is any­thing both­er­ing you?”

“I’m do­ing very well, ” the Rebbe told her. “I want that for my son it should be good. ”

The last dance en­graved in my mem­ory took place on the last Sim­chas Torah dur­ing the day.⁵ The Rebbe held his holy hands up high and sang Nye Zhu­ritze Chloptzi.⁶

In the mid­dle he stopped and said, “A gift has been given, but if the re­cip­i­ent had not pleased the bene­fac­tor, it would not have been given to him. ”⁷ And he spoke lofty words which I could not un­der­stand.

5. Simchas Torah 5688 (1927) was the Rebbe's last in Russia, before leaving on the following day, on Isru Chag. ↩
6. “Friends, don't worry about what will become of us…” ↩
7. Gittin 50b. Perhaps the intention here is that the recipient must ensure that he is actually pleasing the benefactor so that he is worthy of receiving the gift. ↩

At the end of the Sim­chas Torah far­bren­gen of 5726 (1965), when it was time to be­gin hakafos, the Rebbe in­structed R. Zal­man to an­nounce “ Sha, shtiller!” and get the crowd quiet. Af­ter sev­eral at­tempts, the Rebbe asked him to an­nounce three times, “Kol mevaser, mevaser v’omer!” (“a voice an­nounces and says” – from the Hoshanos liturgy). As he did, the Rebbe smiled.

When the Rebbe re­quested at one Sim­chas Torah far­bren­gen for the chil­dren to sing “Hamal’ach Ha­goel,” R. Zal­man led the singing, to the Rebbe’s great de­light.

Sim­chas Torah stood out as a spe­cial time be­tween R. Yis­roel and the Rebbe. On Sim­chas Torah morn­ing, R. Yis­roel would lead Shacharis, and then be­fore hakafos, he would joy­ously re­cite kid­dush over mashkeh. He would en­ter with two large trays of cake that his wife had pre­pared, en­cour­ag­ing ev­ery­one to take a bite. Thus be­gan the day of ex­u­ber­ant cel­e­bra­tion in 770.

The Rebbe en­joyed R. Yis­roel’s nat­u­ral chas­sidic hap­pi­ness, and when R. Yis­roel was more sub­dued, the Rebbe would mo­tion to him, seek­ing an ex­pla­na­tion for the change.