"Room" one hundred and forty in the hall of Hayom Yom.
Friday, 11 Nissan 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Metzora, Shishi, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, 11th of the month, from chapter 61 to and including chapter 65.
Tanya, on this day we study the second part, the continuation of chapter 41. The daily shiur begins on page 56 with the words "Vehineh Hashem", and ends on page 112 with the word "Utefillin".
The daily teaching is a short and famous teaching, and its source is a letter written by the Rebbe Rayatz on 19 Tammuz 5700. The letter is interesting and brief: a chassid wrote a letter to the Rebbe Rayatz on 10 Tammuz 5700, and asked for a blessing for health. The Rebbe Rayatz answers him in a letter on 19 Tammuz, blessing him and guiding him to listen to all the doctors, and that Hashem will send him a recovery.
And the Rebbe Rayatz adds an interesting passage, and writes to him: "I received your letter on my day of celebration, the memorial day of 12 Tammuz" - your letter reached me by hashgachah pratis on my birthday, 12 Tammuz. And it is brought in seforim what should be done on a birthday - and this is the daily teaching: "On one's birthday, a person should seclude himself, recall his memories, and reflect upon them, and those that require correction and teshuvah - he should repent and correct them." This is what the Rebbe Rayatz writes to him.
The conclusion of the letter is very interesting: since the Rebbe Rayatz writes here that on a birthday a person must recall his memories, he writes to that chassid that when he opened his letter - on 19 Tammuz - he recalled the time when the chassid arrived in Lubavitch, and the words his father, the Rebbe Rashab, said about him, and the hope they placed in him regarding how he would be and how he would succeed, "and it is clear to me that the Rebbe's words endure forever." In other words, in the directive to "recall his memories," the Rebbe Rayatz also included the fact that he himself recalled his memories about that chassid and his situation.
This is a teaching that the Rebbe chose to include in Hayom Yom on 11 Nissan - the Rebbe's own birthday, as is known. But in 5703, when the Rebbe published Hayom Yom, none of the chassidim yet knew that this was the Rebbe's birthday.
When did the Rebbe's birthday first become known? This happened several years later, in 5707. In that year, as is known, the Rebbe was in Paris - he traveled to welcome his mother, Rebbetzin Chana, who had then left Russia, and returned with her, and afterward to the United States. When the Rebbe's mother was in Paris with the chassidim, she revealed to them on 11 Nissan that this was her son's birthday, and told them: "Ask him to daven with you on this day." This was the first time the chassidim knew that this was the Rebbe's birthday.
The next time the Rebbe did something on his birthday was already after accepting the neshius, in 5712, when the Rebbe turned fifty, and he delivered a maamar chassidus to a very limited audience in his room. Afterward, when the Rebbe reached the age of sixty, in 5727, there was also a farbrengen. And from 5731 until 5745 the Rebbe held a very large farbrengen every year on his birthday, and 5745 was the last time there was a farbrengen; afterward there were sichos on the adjacent days.
It is known that in 5748, after the histalkus of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, the Rebbe initiated the "Birthday Campaign" on her birthday, 25 Adar - to encourage every Jew to mark their birthday. The Rebbe also outlined ten customs to be practiced on a birthday, and we will review them briefly.
The customs are: to receive an aliyah to the Torah on the Shabbos preceding the birthday; to increase in giving tzedakah on this day; to increase in prayer, meaning in the kavanah of the prayer; to study the new chapter of Tehillim; to add a shiur in nigleh and in chassidus; to learn a maamar chassidus, in whole or in part, by heart and to review it in public; to increase in acts for others and in spreading the wellsprings outward. And then comes the point - to seclude oneself and recall one's memories.
The Rebbe once explained what it means "to seclude oneself and recall one's memories": if a person merited to be in yechidus with the Rebbe - he should picture to himself what happened in yechidus, what he asked and what he was answered; this is called "to seclude oneself and recall one's memories". Furthermore, to take upon oneself a new carefulness, an additional scrupulousness in a certain mitzvah. And the tenth custom is to hold a joyous farbrengen on that day with one's household, friends, and acquaintances; and if possible, on a day when it is permitted, to also recite the "Shehecheyanu" blessing over a new fruit and thereby mark the birthday. These are the ten customs with which the Rebbe guided how one should relate to a birthday, and the foundation for this is in this teaching.
And we will conclude with the context in which we find the allusions in the teachings according to the progression of the Rambam's Yad Hachazakah. In these days we are in the teachings that correspond to Sefer Avodah, as we have seen in previous days. Yesterday the teaching was connected to the conclusion of Hilchos Issurei Mizbe'ach, and today the next halachos in Sefer Avodah begin - Hilchos Maaseh Hakorbanos.
And it is interesting that in the first chapters of Hilchos Maaseh Hakorbanos, the Rambam points out that for the korbanos that are consecrated it is important to know when their "birthday" is, because for every korban there is the year in which it can be offered; one needs to know exactly how old it is, and then to know to which korban and to which kodashim it belongs. It is interesting that this teaching corresponds exactly to these halachos in which the "birthdays" of the kodashim are important.