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The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 1,757 words · 9:31. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 I have known the Rav since the age of 13, 12 or 13, when he would come to us on Motza'ei Shabbos, at the Sinai synagogue in Holon. He would come only on Motza'ei Shabbos. And so it was for years, at 13, 14, 15. I remember that when he was 14 I said to my dear brother-in-law, Rabbi Nissim, who lived there in the neighborhood, I told him: This boy is no ordinary boy.
0:29 I'm telling you, this boy has something. That voice of his instills in us a certain fear of Heaven... This isn't just another story about the Baal Shem Tov. Besides that, we saw in him a mastery of the stories of the tzaddikim, from the era of the Baal Shem Tov down to the Rebbes of our own day, at levels that just don't exist. If there were a quiz on stories of tzaddikim, the Rav would take first place in the world. In time, I'll tell you briefly: in time, at something like age 17, if my memory doesn't mislead me, he would also come some two or three times a week, in the middle of the week, which had not been so before.
1:11 And he would sit and learn, and I would attach myself to him. Attach myself to him. And he wanted his privacy, and each time I wouldn't give in to him. I would see him sitting and learning Likutei Moharan, sitting with the Noam Elimelech, sitting and learning, and I say to him: Would the Rav give us a few words of Torah? And so, slowly, slowly, slowly, we connected, until the walls between us came down. I began to understand that this was not just another youth, just another yeshivah boy, but a great, great, very great prodigy.
1:42 And then he began coming to the Sinai synagogue at night. He would sit in the women's section and learn all night. His daily schedule was crazy: almost twenty hours a day, almost twenty hours. Apart from eating and things like that he was in Torah; two hours of hisbodedus every day. and with what was left, he barely slept two hours a day, barely two hours a day.
2:10 We would sit and learn Likutei Moharan with him. He knew Likutei Moharan forwards and backwards, and he would bring us new insights that no ear has heard since the stand at Mount Sinai. Things that truly blew us away. And then I became bound to him with cords of the soul. I would be gone many nights; I wouldn't come home. And slowly, slowly, I began introducing him to tzaddikim, all kinds of hidden tzaddikim and the like, and I began taking him out to gatherings.
2:44 We were there — in west Rishon LeZion we had the synagogue there, which would host us. There we would receive the public. I'm talking about when he was 18, 19, 20. And little by little he began to become known, little by little. And I remember the day he came to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. Ben poras Yosef upon him — may no evil eye touch him. People wouldn't leave him.
Read the whole shiur in English (14 more parts)
3:08 And I'm telling you only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction: his knowledge of Torah was higher and higher, at levels one cannot grasp and cannot understand. And of course, I always knew that he was destined for greatness. Hashem granted me the merit of introducing him to his father-in-law, Rabbi Yehoshua, through whom, of course, he came to know his daughter, to whom he is married today.
3:39 We would come, back in those days, we would come at 12 at night to a place on HaNevi'im Street, where there is a certain synagogue, and a lot of the guys would come there. They knew: on Thursday nights we traveled to the Kotel Tunnels, we traveled to the grave of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, to the hilula of the Baba Sali. The Rav would write tefillos literally like Rabbi Nosson.
4:04 In a minute and a half, two minutes, he brings down a tefillah that is not of this world. And he would write us tefillos for rising in the morning, for putting on tefillin. I remember, I have his first book, of the tefillos, that he put out back then. Today all the copies are gone. In short, however much I tell, I will be making it smaller. As they say: one who adds, takes away. You caught me here, as they say, on one foot, so I'll tell you briefly about the old days. And we were... that is, when I say 'we', it's my daughter, who used to put out his leaflets for him then, in the old days.
4:42 His leaflets weren't like today's; it was a single sheet, front and back, and we would read his new insights and be overwhelmed. He would tell us, as they say, only, what? Revealing one handbreadth and covering two. I brought Rabbi Avraham Chai to the Sinai synagogue for the first time, and I introduced the two tzaddikim to each other. We took pictures that day, we were together that day, we danced that day, and Chacham Avraham said of him that he is a very, very great prodigy; that he sees here a great deal of kedushah, much, much, much kedushah.
5:14 And I also merited to introduce him to Rabbi Leibowitz, may he rest in peace. We drove, he and I, the Yanuka and I, to the hospital. I was like his driver. And he used to come to us in Netanya a lot. Every Monday and Thursday he would give talks at my home and at my kollel, to the avreichim. We were truly, as they say, members of the household. Baruch Hashem, and thanks to Hashem. — What happened with Rabbi Leibowitz? Rabbi Leibowitz: he came to visit him.
5:42 He came to visit him when Rabbi Leibowitz was ill, at Ma'ayanei HaYeshuah, and there the bond between them was woven. But what passed between them afterwards, that I no longer know. That is what's called stories of tzaddikim. But when he was there, there were bound between them, as they say, cords of love. He would tell me, the Yanuka, he would tell me about each and every one what his greatness is: this one is like this, and this one like this, and this one like this.
6:10 Ay! You understand? We simply couldn't keep up with his pace. His pace was night after night — stitching the nights together. And I told you, if he slept two hours a day... He would immerse perhaps three times a day: for Shacharis, for Minchah, for Arvis. There is a place for Tashlich there at the Sinai synagogue, which he turned into a mikveh. And they closed it off because of him and made it a mikveh; a real mikveh they made it. People have already been there, filmed there, and were told all the stories of back then. We would hold many an Oneg Shabbos with him.
6:39 Many an Oneg Shabbos we held with him at the Sinai synagogue. And I was very close, like his own son — to Chacham Avraham. I was a member of his household. I brought him to the Sinai synagogue so that he would meet the Yanuka. And so they came to know each other. They sat, talked together and all, and the Rav honored him: he came down from upstairs and escorted him to the car. He said: Why do you bring him to me? Why do you trouble a Jew so elderly, ninety years old? I should be coming to him; he shouldn't be coming to me, said the Rav.
7:06 Our Rav was very humble. And... What else can I tell? — How many times did they meet? They had at least some two or three meetings. At least. A servant of Hashem. To be at his age, in our generation, with our permissiveness, with the cell phones and everything, and to conduct himself the way he did, it isn't real. It isn't real.
7:32 I told you, he slept two hours a night. We would go with him to do hisbodedus in the sands of Holon, we would hear the jackals, the foxes, terrifying. No light, nothing, except the moon. It's all dunes there. He would vanish on us, and we would be trembling there. And we would do hisbodedus until he met up with us; he would go to his side, we to ours. And his hisbodedus was also at the grave of Shimshon; we would go there with him as well.
7:58 We went with him to many graves of tzaddikim; he would do hisbodedus. He was entirely Torah, hisbodedus, Torah, hisbodedus, Torah, hisbodedus, Torah, hisbodedus, Torah, and his tefillos, which he would write. We came to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, and in a minute and a half he brought down a tefillah for us there by the tzaddik, by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the writer of the Mishnah. We went to the Baba Sali; he wrote us a tefillah at the Baba Sali. We came to the Kotel Tunnels: at once, a tefillah at the Kotel. He writes in a minute, two, two minutes; he brings down a tefillah like Rabbi Nosson.
8:25 To write tefillos like these without sitting down now to think, to ponder, to draw a word from here, from there... He just writes it for you, the whole tefillah, like that. You see tefillos that are not of this world. People investigate; they want to know where he came from. They see that a Jew comes from a traditional home, not a charedi home. 'Who is your Rav? Who is it?' They can't grasp it. 'Where did you come from? What, did they land you from the sky in a spaceship?'
8:50 'You came down, a soul that... Who is your Rav? What?' And this has eaten at people, always. It always has. People... no, no, no. Especially in Breslov, Breslov Chassidus, where they don't accept this: you need to be a student of Rabbi Yisrael Odesser, and then Rabbi Yisrael Karduner, and then Rabbi Nachman of Tulchin, and then... to show a link all the way back to Rabbeinu. And our Rav, he came as such a soul that descended to the world, that they didn't recognize it; they didn't know who his Rav was.
9:20 And his knowledge is... it is simply impossible to grasp, impossible to understand. Impossible to grasp and impossible to understand. Literally.
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