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The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 1,753 words · 10:04. Press a time to hear it said.
0:01 How much chizuk there was from the gathering on the 9th of Shevat last year - how much chizuk there was from it. A great loss. "I, I am He Who comforts you"; "in Jerusalem you shall be comforted."
0:27 May the Holy One, blessed be He, comfort you, the whole family. From the little that we merited to hear, truly: a holy Rebbetzin, a tzaddekes, truly an angel of Hashem. Udel, the daughter of the holy Baal Shem Tov - when she heard Kedushah she would throw down the broom and answer Kedushah with the angels. Truly.
0:52 Only deveikus, only Tehillim, only kedushah, only Torah, only tefillah. No connection to this world at all. None. Nothing interested her - not clothes, not jewelry, not money, only chesed, only one more poor soul, one more guest to take in, one more... She drew close, and helped, and guided hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of girls, and families, and women.
1:29 Women came from America, came specially, for twelve hours. Besides the men who came, their wives came. I didn't understand it. Fine, the husband wants to comfort his Rebbe - but what does the wife have to do with coming? "What do you mean? The Rebbetzin accompanied her through every hardship, every matter, every question of shalom bayis, every difficulty with a child." She accompanied them day by day. There are dozens and dozens of girls, and young men too, hundreds, for whom she was like their mother in every way, truly like their mother.
2:05 Just in the last two years - orphans in the house, in the midst of her illness. Orphans in the house. We married off an orphan to a girl who grew up in our home. She was all chesed and self-sacrifice. Komarna, Komarna. Yes, she had the spiritual levels of Komarna, the ruach hakodesh of Komarna, the... He told me...
2:31 With her there were stories by the hundreds, but one story: Last year on Shavuos we were in Mezhibuzh. On that trip to Mezhibuzh we stayed in Moldova, because from there... in Ukraine there are no... So I went there to the mikveh that there is in Moldova. Meanwhile the Rebbetzin waited outside; she strolled with the attendant, strolled with him outside. At some point she says to him, "Come, let's go to the door." She says to him, "Come and see: five, four, three, two, one" - and I opened the door.
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2:56 She knew exactly when I was coming out. But these were things... with her this was an everyday occurrence. Things that... She knew who was outside, who was coming in, who was going out. She sensed every person, knew every person. The couple who came from America told me: "Every time there was a difficulty between us in shalom bayis, the Rebbetzin wrote to us, to strengthen... How did she know what we were going through at home? But she wrote. She knew."
3:23 Once, during the radiation treatments she had at Ichilov - you, the one accompanying, have to go all the way out, and when they finish they open the door and you go in. There was one time when for some reason I did not go out. I found myself some corner outside - meaning, not inside the room, there it is certainly forbidden, with the radiation - I found a corner outside and said Tehillim. When I came in to help her down from the bed: "Today you didn't go out. Today you were here." "How do you know?"
3:47 When I took her out in the wheelchair: "You stood here in the corner and prayed. I saw you standing here saying Tehillim." With us these were everyday occurrences, things of this kind. Right after our wedding we raised an orphan in our home.
4:12 We were young - I got married at eighteen. A neighbor whose mother had passed away - he was a boy of thirteen - he grew up in our home; he would call her "Mama." This is the Rebbetzin's brother. The Rav already knows him. That was the bar mitzvah, right?
4:39 A year in Jerusalem. Yes, on Rosh Hashanah. This is the Rebbetzin's brother. Komarna. A descendant, son after son, of Rabbi Aizik of Komarna. Rabbi Eliezer Tzvi of Komarna, Rabbi Aizik of Komarna. Rabbi Mordechai was particular about raising orphans in the home.
5:04 Rabbi Mordechai? Rabbi Mordechai, and also Rabbi Menachem Nachum Mordechai. He was a nephew of Rabbi Nachum Shostik. He is mentioned in the Degel Machaneh Ephraim. So he was very, very particular that orphans be raised in the home. He said that whoever wants to rectify the sin of pgam habris, the blemish of the covenant, completely - it is only through orphans in the home. How did he put it? To raise orphans, to strengthen orphans. The Maharsha says, on "Did you engage in being fruitful and multiplying?" - if I remember correctly, the Maharsha says: marrying off orphans.
5:33 So perhaps it is a rectification of being fruitful and multiplying. One also fulfills the obligation with this - one who raises children. Yes. Even those who cannot fulfill being fruitful and multiplying - then through this. Through his being willing to raise them. Does the Rav still have orphans there? Eh? Do you have an orphanage? Inside the home. They are growing up there. They proposed to me today - they told me they would take me to Jerusalem for Shavuos. We get up from shiva on Wednesday; they would take me quietly to Jerusalem, only...
6:04 I said: "And what will I do with all these orphans? And what will I do with all of these? The Rebbetzin passed away, so we stop the acts of chesed? I am not willing." They said: "After the shiva you need a little, for... come, let us take you." They told me they have already arranged - maybe even already paid for - apartments in Jerusalem, in our area, where we always stay. Something, a minyan - they have already arranged a place for a shul, so that it would be only... If there is no room for all the members of the household, for all those who are always around me - what will I do with the couple we married off?
6:33 What will I do with the young men? What will I do with the orphans? What will I do with the widower who is like a member of our household? We will prepare whatever is needed - but with everyone. With self-sacrifice - on Pesach, when the Rebbetzin was already with both feet up Above, Pesach was with all of these, all the orphans. She cared for them. One of the orphans told me, not long ago - he had a fracture.
7:00 Some pallet fell on his leg. The Rebbetzin worried about him: "How are you feeling, and how is this, and how is that?" She cared about him. May the Holy One, blessed be He, strengthen you, Rav. May He give you hope from Heaven, may He give you comfort. "I, I am He Who comforts you"; "in Jerusalem you shall be comforted." Now, baruch Hashem, she merits the upper Gan Eden, all the holy ones and all the tzaddikim. Here in this world...
7:26 Our holy Rebbe, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, says of a widower: "Not one of them was broken." When a person's "half of his body" goes up Above, then, Heaven forbid, there is a break. When a person merits... They say that the holy Baal Shem Tov - had his wife been with him, he would have gone up to Heaven in a storm-wind, so greatly had he merited a level of kedushah with his body - for he was whole. The Baal Shem Tov said that if his wife had remained alive, he could have gone up to Heaven with his body. Now he must fulfill "and to dust you shall return."
7:56 Yes. That means that the wholeness of the holy Grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, came from their union. Yes. I said at the funeral: "What is mine and what is yours is hers." We merited that there was such a one, such a one among our people. We merited. We merited. She merited. We merited.
8:21 We love you, honored Rav; we honor you. Thank you very much. May the Holy One, blessed be He, grant you success; may you have success, and may He give you strength from Heaven, to lift you up and strengthen you. May we merit the complete geulah speedily; may Hashem, blessed be He, redeem us. May we merit the building of the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, the resurrection of the dead, and all the prophecies that are destined to be fulfilled. As Rashi in Tractate Shabbos, page 31a, says on "Did you await salvation?" - Rashi says: the fulfillment of the words of the prophets.
8:50 That is how Rashi explains it. When a person truly believes, awaiting salvation - all the words of the prophets who prophesied, Yechezkel chapter 43, the whole Third Temple - when a person reads this and says, "Will I merit that this be fulfilled in my days?" - then, when a person believes in this with complete emunah, that is "Did you await salvation?" Rav Kook, on "Did you await salvation?" - Rav Kook says in Ein Ayah: it is like you are in a prison, digging a tunnel and getting out of the prison.
9:15 "How do you await salvation?" Is that what Rav Kook writes in Ein Ayah? So that is a delay of more than the blink of an eye. "The salvation of Hashem is like the blink of an eye" - that is from Chernobyl, written in the parshah - exactly now, for this parshah - meaning that the salvation is quicker than that. With the prison there is still a wait until he gets out. Yes, that is what he is speaking of there - there the intensity of the awaiting must be strong; that is the point. A further level is to reach awaiting salvation in the blink of an eye - as if it can happen right now.
9:44 That is complete and absolute bitachon. Once again, I offer you comfort. I pray for our children, Rav. Yes. "I am He Who comforts you," in Jerusalem. Thank you very much, thank you for taking the trouble. Thank you very much. Good tidings. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming. Good tidings.
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