Chanukah - MyShliach

When the two bothers met, the Parsha says that Yosef and Binyomin fell on each others necks and cried. Why
were they crying
Each one cried for the destruction of the Mikdash that would be in the other’s portion of land. Yosef cried over
the destruction of the two Batei Mikdash that would be in Yerushalyim, in Binyamin’s portion. Binyamin cried
over the destruction of Mishkan Shilo that would be in Yosef’s portion of land.
The Mishkan and the Batei Mikdash are general - for all the Yidden. We also have personal Batei Mikdash. That
is the Beis Hamikdash that is built in the heart of each Jew, which Chaliah he can destroy. The Beis Hamikdash
is a place for the Shechina of Hashem to rest. It rests in both the main, communal Mikdash and in our personal
Mikdash. A Yid who keeps Mitzvos and acts according to the Torah, causes the Shechina to rest inside himself,
and that is how he builds his personal Mikdash. When a Yid, Chas V’Sholom, does the opposite of that, he causes
the Shechina to leave, thereby destroying his personal Mikdash.
The destruction of the Beis Hamikdash is something very, very sad. Sad enough to cause Yosef and Binyamin to
cry on each others shoulders before it even happened. Similarly, if we see our personal Mikdash being destroyed,
that is something very sad and should cause us to cry.
Why did both Yosef and Binyamin cry for the destruction that would be in the other person’s portion Why did
they not cry for their personal destruction We too must cry when we see another Yid’s personal Mikdash being
destroyed. Why

Crying does not rebuild a Mikdash, it just lessens our pain. When someone else destroys their Mikdash, we do
not have power to change the situation, all we can do is cry for them and help lessen their pain. When a person’s
own Mikdash is destroyed, then he must not cry. He must act. He does have the power to fix the situation, and
can rebuild his Mikdash through doing Mitzvos.
Therefore Yosef and Binyamin did not cry for the destruction that would be in their portion, because in their own
portion each has the power to act! He must get up and rebuild his Mikdash.
Let us get up and rebuild our personal Batei Mikdash and may we be Zoche to have the “general” Beis Hamikdash
permanently rebuilt in Yerushalayim, today!

Chanukah
From a Sicha
“I was once privileged to hear from my father-in-law (the Frierdiker Rebbe) that his father (the Rebbe Rashab)
was once asked, “What is a Chabad Chassid”
He replied, “A Chassid is like a lamplighter.” In olden days, there was a person in every town who would light the
street-lamps with a light he carried at the end of a long pole. On the street corners, the lamps were there, ready
and waiting to be it. Sometimes, however, the lamps are not as easily accessible. There are lamps in forsaken
places; in deserts, or at sea, etc. There must be someone to light even those lamps, so that they may fulfill their
purpose and light up the paths of others.
It is written, “The neshomo of a person is Hashem’s candle.” It is also written, “A Mitzvah is a candle, and the
Torah is light.” A Chassid is one who puts his personal affairs aside and sets out to light up the neshomos of
Jews with the light of Torah and Mitzvot. Jewish neshomos are ready and waiting to be kindled. Sometimes
they are close, nearby; sometimes they are in a desert, or at sea. There must be someone who will forgo his or
her own comforts and conveniences, and reach out to light those lamps. This is the function of a true Chassid.
“The message is obvious. I will only add that this function is not really limited to Chassidim, but is the function
of every Jew. Hashgocho protis brings Jews to the most unexpected, remote places, in order that they carry
out this purpose of lighting up the world.
“May Hashem grant that each and every one of us be a dedicated ‘street-lamp lighter,’ and fulfill his/her duty
with joy and gladness of heart.”

This month we celebrate Didan Notzach, the victory that clearly proclaimed the Rebbe, and the Seforim,
belonging to us- the Chassidim. Even the Goyishe court recognized that the Torah and the Rebbe make us
who we are, and without them we are nothing.
It is a Minhag to buy Seforim on Hey Teves, so buy seforim, surround yourself with them, learn from them, do
what they tell you to do, and bring Moshiach now!
WHAT IS HEY TEVES
The seforim that the Rebbeim had collected and guarded over the years were disappearing from the Rebbe’s
library. A relative of the Frierdiker Rebbe was sneaking them out. He claimed that part of the library belonged
to him, as part of his inheritance from the Friediker Rebbe.
A long court case followed. During the court case, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka declared: “My father, the Frierdiker
Rebbe, and his Seforim, belong to the Chassidim!” When the court heard this, it influenced their decision that
the Seforim must remain with the Chassidim. What a Kiddush Hashem! The Goyim recognized and announced
that the Rebbeim and Chassidus are an essential part of the Chassidim.
Although the return of the Seforim happened many years ago, it is very important to us always; especially
every year on Hey Teves. The Rebbe stressed that we must always add to our Torah learning. In addition to
learning by ourselves, we must teach others to learn too! Every year on Hey Teves, Chassidim buy Seforim for
themselves, and the Rebbe mentioned that if you are planning on buying someone a gift, buy them Seforim!
The Rebbe said: You should have your own Seforim: A Siddur, Chumash, Tehillim, small Tanya, and a Haggada. They
should belong to you and you should take good care of them. You should write, LaHashem Haaretz Umiloi inside
each sefer. Don’t worry about ruining the Seforim by reading them; Seforim are meant to be used!

Immediately before the Nisim of the Six-day war in 1967 the Rebbe began ‘ ’, the first of the 10
Mivtzaim. The Rebbe demanded that all his Chasidim should go out and put Tefilin on any Yid that was willing.
The idea of approaching not-yet-frum strangers in the street with a request to do a Mitzva, and such a complicated
one at that, was unheard of and no one knew exactly how to go about it. Meetings were made throughout Eretz
Yisroel to discuss the issue, and the Chasidim in Kfar Chabad made a big Farbrengen.
That night the main speaker was Reb Mendel Futerfas, an Eltereh Chosod and the Mashpia of the main Yeshiva,
who had spent many years imprisoned in Siberia for his work to help people learnTorah and keep the Mitzvos.
That entire night he and everyone else at the farbrengen, tried to bring examples or possible explanations for
this totally new idea, with no success.
Then, Reb Mendel remembered a story that he had heard as a prisoner, fifteen years earlier.
From everything he heard and saw in the six years he was in Siberia, tried to learn a lesson in ,
and usually he succeeded. (He once said, that the reasonof Anipoli listed only seven positive lessons
in that can be learned from a thief, is because he never sat in prison. Had he sat in prison with a thief,
he would have learned thousands of things!) But there was one story, that, try as he might, he just could not
decipher the point. Until now.
The prisoner telling the story had been a deep-sea diver in the Czar’s navy, and was now imprisoned by the
Communists. “It occasionally happened that one of the ships in the Czar’s navy would sink, sometimes because
of a storm at sea, sometimes in battle, or because the ship struck a rock. Now, ships are worth a lot of money.
Just the metal and the equipment alone were often worth millions of rubles, so the navy developed a way to
lift the ship from the ocean floor and tow it to shore. In this way, the ship could either be fixed, or at least parts
of it could be used again.

“That’s where I come in. What they would do is send two towing-ships out to sea. The ships would anchor
directly above one end of the sunken ship. Each ship would lower a long, thick chain with a huge hook on the
end, and I would dive down, attach one hook to the front of the sunken ship, and the other to the back. Then
the towing-ships would pull in their chains, lift the sunken one from the ocean floor and tow it to shore.
“This was all fine when the sunken ship had been underwater for less than a month or so, but after that, the ship
began to rust, and the hooks brought up only huge chunks of iron, leaving the rest of the ship behind. So a new
and ultimately successful technique was developed. The two tugboats, instead of lowering just one chain each,
would spread a huge, hollow, rubber mat with thick rubber walls over the place where the sunken ship was.
Inside the entire length of the mat was a large flat sheet of steel with a few hundred steel ropes attached to it.
The ropes ran though special airtight holes in the lower rubber wall in a way that no water could get in and no
air would escape. At the end of each dangling chain, was a hook.
“My job was to go down, with several other strong divers, position the mat over the sunken ship, and attach the
hooks to as many places as possible. Then a motor on one of the two tugboats would pump air into the mat
and slowly inflate it. It began to pull upwards until …oopa! Suddenly the entire ship lifted at once and could be
towed to dry land.”
“Just now I began to understand the story,” said. “The ship is like the Jewish people, rusty and falling
apart because they have been sunk in exile for almost two thousand years. The Rebbe’s idea is to save the ship,
and we are the Rebbe’s deep-sea divers. We have to attach a hook to every single … put on as
many as possible, and then, when enough ‘hooks’ are attached …oopa! ‘ will pull everyone up and out of
Golus TOGETHER.”

Why did Yosef and Binyomin cry over the
destruction of both Batei Hamikdash and
the Mishkan even though these calamities
hadn’t happened yet
Why didn’t Yaakov believe that Yosef was
alive in Mitzraim
Yosef and Binyamin cried over the future
destruction of the Batei Hamikdash because
they saw, through Ruach Hakodesh, that
it would be destroyed because of Sinas
Chinam (baseless hatred). They shed
tears because they realized that Yosef’s
exile, to a land distant from his father, was
caused by senseless hatred. They realized
that this hatred had not disappeared and
would resurface many times in the future.
Now, that’s something to cry about!
Yaakov did not believe that Yosef was still
alive, because the brothers lied previously
saying that he was killed by a wild animal.
Also, Yaakov could not believe that his son
Yosef was alive spiritually in that spiritual
wasteland, Mitzraim.