We are in the fifty-first lesson in the chain of the Rebbe's lineage, in the history of the Rebbe, part eleven. We have reached the year 5706. It is written here in one modest and simple line: In 5706 he prints a Haggadah of Pesach with a collection of customs and reasons gathered by him. The Haggadah of Pesach — every Torah scholar and every person who understands the matter, when he reads it, comes away deeply moved by the power of the collection of customs and reasons that the Rebbe made on the Haggadah of Pesach.
Rabbi Zevin once defined this. Rabbi Zevin writes, and I will read a portion of what he wrote: "In brief conciseness, presented before us for each passage, each sentence, and each expression of the Haggadah are the sources in the Rishonim and Poskim, together with a summary of the laws and customs pertaining to that place in the seder," meaning on the night of the seder, "along with fitting commentaries collected from a selection of the finest Rishonim and Acharonim, and there are of course original insights and reasons of the author," meaning of the Rebbe himself.
Someone else who wrote a review on the Haggadah wrote that it is difficult to understand how such an immense wealth of erudition entered into a slim booklet of forty-seven pages, when most of the pages are the body of the Haggadah itself, and only the smaller portion is the words of the compiler and editor, yet there are tremendous novellae there.
We can see that the Rebbe followed the same manner of naming this book that he wrote as the Alter Rebbe did. The Alter Rebbe wrote the Tanya, and he called it "Likutei Amarim," meaning a compiler. The Rebbe too called the Haggadah "Likutei Minhagim v'Ta'amim," in the same wording as the Tanya.
If we want to divide the topics discussed in the Rebbe's commentary on the Haggadah, we can divide it into seven sections. It is not divided into sections, but overall, when you read it, you find seven sections there. First of all, there are sources for the passages recited in the Haggadah, and the order of the development of those passages throughout the generations. A second section: laws in a very concise form for the Seder night. A third section: reasons and sources for those laws and those customs. A fourth part: all the questions that arise regarding the text of the Haggadah, with an answer and explanation for all the questions. A fifth part: the explanation of the Chabad customs for the Seder night. A sixth part: the reasons and sources of the Chabad customs in the ways they differ from other customs. And a seventh part: an explanation of the guidance of the Alter Rebbe within the Haggadah, and the sources for everything. A truly wonderfully comprehensive book, and everything is written in an abbreviated and concise manner. The Rebbe disseminated this in the year 5706 (תש"ו).
Let us also look at another passage about the following year, 5707. It is written here: He traveled to Paris on the 25th of Adar to meet his mother, the Rebbetzin Marat Chana, may she rest in peace, and he stayed there about three months. It is written here about three months, but the Rebbe was in Paris more than three months, for he traveled on the 25th of Adar and returned to New York on the 28th of Sivan.
This was after the Rebbe had not seen his mother for more than twenty years, and the Rebbe's mother left Russia. The Rebbe traveled especially to greet her, and was there with her for close to seven months. Afterward he returned together with her to the United States, and the Rebbe's mother lived near him all those years. There are many accounts of the tremendous efforts that the Rebbe Rayatz made so that they would succeed in getting the Rebbe's mother out of Russia. Baruch Hashem, it was successful.
There is another passage here in the continuation of that same year, 5707: On the 28th of Sivan he returns to New York together with his mother. During his stay in Paris, in those three months, the Rebbe farbrenged with the chassidim in Paris and aroused them regarding the giving of ma'amad funds and regarding hiskashrus to the honor of the holiness of the Rebbe Rayatz.
During those months that the Rebbe was in Paris, he was with various figures and held farbrengens with chassidim. One of the farbrengens was on his birthday, the eleventh of Nissan. Only then, for the first time, did they discover that this was the Rebbe's birthday; beforehand they had not known. The Rebbe's mother, when she was there, revealed to the chassidim that this was the Rebbe's birthday, and told them to ask the Rebbe to hold a farbrengen, and of course he agreed. Therefore this was the first time that the Rebbe held a farbrengen with the chassidim on the eleventh of Nissan.
In the farbrengens that the Rebbe held with them, as is noted here, he aroused them regarding the giving of "demei ma'amad." "Demei ma'amad" is money that chassidim would send personally to the Rebbe, for the personal matters that the Rebbe needs. The Rebbe once spoke at those farbrengens in Paris, and said that chassidim wanted to be connected with the Rebbe also in physical matters, meaning not only through studying his Torah and fulfilling his instructions, but simply in physicality, that they should have a connection to the Rebbe's personal physical expenses, and this is "ma'amad."
That very gathering reawakened the chassidim to the matter. It is told that at that gathering the Rebbe said "and I am the one beginning," took a banknote out of his pocket, placed it on the table, and thus aroused everyone to give dmei ma'amad.
I will describe just one more farbrengen that took place there in France, right before the Rebbe left France. He farbrenged with the chassidim and took leave of them. The farbrengen was held in the home of the chassid, Rav Shneur Zalman. The Rebbe farbrenged in his home for an entire night. At first there were many people, not necessarily chassidim, but many people who knew the Rebbe from that period and came to take leave of him. It reached around midnight, and the entire crowd that was less connected gradually left, and only the group remained—what is called the hard core of the chassidim.
And then, at a certain point, something amazing happened: the Rebbe asked each of those present what his name was. The Rebbe began to speak about each and every one, what the meaning of his name was, and how his name was connected to his personality, and so he went from one to another, and explained this according to nigleh, according to Kabbalah, and according to Chassidus for each one. This is like the approach of the Rebbe's father, who would find the connections in the details and in the names.
That night it was like this. I heard—and those who were there are no longer alive, but they wrote—that after the Rebbe finished the round of the usual names, he moved on to the nicknames. Sometimes there is a person who is called by a certain name, but his nickname among his friends, or with some inflection or variation, is different, and the Rebbe began to explain about the nicknames of the names. Simply a night on which the Rebbe revealed, on one hand, enormous erudition, and also something like words of prophecy and a fitting to each and every one, what his matter is and what his essence is. This was the Rebbe's parting from the chassidim in France.