New—Listen: “All the Selichos Begin in Tzalmon”

4 Elul 5776, by the mercies of Hashem upon us, we merited an amazing lesson from our teacher, the Rav shlit"a, which was spoken with holy fervor and self-sacrifice. "The people of Israel are the children of the holy ones on high, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There are no sinners, there are no deniers, there are no secular people; on Yom Kippur everyone unites, everyone prays. I remember when I was a child of about ten, the crowd broke the windows and doors of the Great Synagogue; they were handed tickets and they refused [to leave]. It was so amazing to see the people of Israel alive, even though they were completely secular, they broke everything just to enter for prayer," the Rav shlit"a begins his holy words.

"Rabbi Kupershtoch from Herzliya would weep such tears that everyone came to see him, and when everyone would leave, he would begin to pray. His weeping on Rosh Hashanah melted every heart; all the secular people would come to witness this. The least of Jews is more of a tzaddik than any gentile, because even though he did what he did, it is all only on the outside."

"On the first night of Selichot, before flying to Uman, everyone arrives at Tzalmon; 20,000 people will arrive. At 6:00 PM, they will begin to say the entire Book of Psalms, then they will say Selichot, and immediately after the Vatikin prayer, everyone will travel to the airport and from there to Uman. There will be free buses, food, drink, and dancing until the morning."

"With the Rebbe, everything begins from the first day of Selichot; the Rebbe passes everyone, everyone, into the Book of Life. A person sees that he is alive after Rosh Hashanah and thinks that his sins have been forgiven, but he does not know that they have taken years off his life. Miriam is at the head of the camp; we are commanded in the Torah to remember the act of Miriam, but what did she do? Is it conceivable that Miriam spoke lashon hara (evil speech)? She only wanted to save her brother. 'And they kept the children alive'—Miriam merited the 'Nukba de-Pardashka,' the 'nose' of the Ancient One, and drew down life from the right side. All the children that Miriam delivered were at Mount Sinai. All the six hundred thousand heard the Ten Commandments, 'You shall not make for yourself a god in heaven or on earth,' but the men said that the intention was not to forbid the image of the ox and the animals in the Chariot. The women insisted that even the image of the animals must not be made, but the men tore the jewelry from their ears."

"'Scorpions' hints at 'Machon,' at a Temple of fire. Through the backbreaking labor in Egypt, all their desires were nullified, and thus they were able to draw down the holy souls that would receive the holy Torah, because their filth ceased. On this Yom Kippur, there must be a 'cessation of their filth,' to emerge from all the blemishes of the covenant, from all the terrible blemishes. Therefore, our Rebbe says that one must stick his finger in his eyes and not see any woman in the world."

"The woman is always Malchut (Kingdom); she begins from the Malchut of Malchut, and if she merits, she can ascend up to the Malchut of the Ancient One. And a man without his Malchut cannot [succeed]; he will do all the labors in the world, but without the Malchut, he cannot. It is like a plus and minus in an electric circuit; without the woman, the current will not flow. Hashem wanted to create the souls together as brothers, but because of the sin of the First Man, they were scattered in the world, and only through prayer can a person find his shidduch (marriage match)."

"The most important verse in the Book of Deuteronomy is: 'And it shall be righteousness for us'; here is the entire secret of the Geulah (Redemption). Our Rebbe writes in Torah 251 (Likutey Moharan) that Ruth, who was a princess and lay on beds of gold, left everything and went to glean stalks in the fields. Because when the Rav is present, you pray from six in the morning until 12, and when the Rav is not present, you put on tefillin before sunset—so what is your entire prayer worth? Where is the study? Where is the guarding of the eyes? Every second one must stand before Hashem. To whom are you praying? To the Rav? What, is the Rav an idol? Is this idol worship?"

"Ketzot HaChoshen reveals (Siman 255) that a person is always continuing and moving forward; there is no turning back. A person cannot even transfer from one holiness to another; whoever comes to our Rebbe is 'Kalil l'Hashem' (wholly for Hashem), he is included on the eve of Rosh Hashanah in 'Kalil l'Hashem,' it is impossible to change this even in the middle of speaking."