And it's... there's a lot of lessons, a lot of humility. And I got a lot of feedback. People who, you know... א בן אדם זיך מיט קינדער, you struggle with the children, and then you don't agree with your spouse, it's... it's... it's incredibly powerful. And, and sometimes you have to just say: "Okay, the right thing to do is to be wrong." And then השם helps. And then השם helps. My father told me, that, the Rebbe Rayatz, the Frierdiker Rebbe once said to Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson... Oh, I'm going to mess up the quote so bad. The Rebbe said to him, "ישראל..." I forgot how the beginning of it was. "You know, we can do great things. We have to take מאיעש..." We have to take my יש-ות and your יש-ות, and put it in a pot and boil it out, and then we'll do what we have to do." יש-ות, you know, the childish ego that mamash makes us stupid. When you look back at yourself and you see what you are arguing about, you realize that it's pshut childish.

You have to tell your children the truth, about yourself. A lady said to me once, my son said to me (she told this to me 25 years ago), "Ma, you don't trust me!" She says, "Moishe," her name wasn't Moishe, but let's say, "I don't trust myself, why should I trust you? I don't trust myself!" It's... it's a true answer. We all... we all have a יצר הרע, we're all doing our best. And we're not perfect. And it's okay, I think it's important for kids to know that. It's... it's a fine line between being honest with our children and being too honest, you know. It's also, it's exploitative, you know. Where you tell everybody all of your sins, you're taking... you're using them. But the kids need to know that we are struggling. And the kids need to know that we are fighting. And the kids need to know that when you sin, you're not sinning against God, you're sinning against yourself. And that's what this is.

The truth of the matter is, I don't understand, I don't know how you could grow up today. I don't know how. But... I remember 40 years ago, the Rebbe spoke a lot about Moshiach. And we talk about Moshiach, one of the things he would say always is that before Moshiach comes there isn't going to be no lies. He quoted the possuk in Daniel: "יתבררו ויתלבנו ויצרפו רבים". Before Moshiach comes, everything is open. I mean, so on a technological level, there's no secrets. I mean, everything you do is recorded for posterity. But one of the truths of this age is, none of us can afford to lie. You can't bluff. It's too... it's too costly.

I... I don't know. The whole business with the shorts, I do... I want to teach חסידות, you know? I don't want to be a provocateur, but this is the game... You have to have these little shorts, you know? Yeah, I know. I know. And these shorts get me into trouble, that's just the way it is. Shorts? YouTube shorts? Yeah, yeah. Oh that's what you're talking about? Yeah. That too, that too. He, he takes the most provocative thing I say. Who's he? There's a kid, we pay him a lot of money. What's the difference? I don't know if he wants to be publicized. And he puts up these shorts and that's where I get all my hits. You know, people are clickbait-ing. A מאמר of חסידות they're not interested in. Yeah, yeah. Huh? I'm paying him because I was told to pay him by the people who I work with, who advise me, and this is how you get publicity, this is how you... I want to teach חסידות. And this is part of it. You have to just get people, you have to draw people to yourself, and this is how you do it.

No, we, we, we lost a child. So, I like to say nine, my wife wants me to say ten. And then I have to make you feel bad that I lost the kid, then I feel good that I made you feel bad, and that's מחיה. When? He was born, he was born... You spoke about it. ...כ"ה תמוז תשנ"ד, his ברית was on ג' מנחם אב, the שלושים of the Rebbe. And he passed away in תשנ"ח, 19... most, most of my children remember him. Only my old, my oldest two. You spoke about it. Yeah, he was four. Four years old?

You know the story with their father, when the פריערדיקער רבי came from Russia, came from Russia, and he was אן עשיר, he was a rich man. And the Rebbe was traveling— I mean, traveling through Europe, every 15 minutes is another country. And the Rebbe was on a train. And people got on the train to see the פריערדיקער רבי. And, and people came in one by one to the Rebbe. In, in the train, he had יחידות. The problem is they were getting close to the border. So פייוול gets out of the train, and he goes over to the conductor, and he says to the conductor, "The train is broken." - איי, איי, איי. So the conductor tells him, "The train is not broken." So he gives him א סך געלט, he says, "The train is broken." The train is broken! So the גוי says, "The train is broken!" And the train is sitting. And the פריערדיקער רבי realized the train is not moving. So, so פייוול walks in with everyone, one by one they're going to יחידות, and the Rebbe says, "וואס איז געשען?" He says, "The train is broken." "ווי לאנג וועט דאס נעמען צו פיקסן?" פייוול זאגט, "ווען דער רבי וועט ענדיקן." "ווען דער רבי וועט ענדיקן, the train will be fixed." This was פייוול. And if you knew לייבל, you saw his father in him, דאך מיינט ער א חסידישער איד.

So he tells me, they took on a project in Manhattan, and they signed the contract. And when they examined the project more closely, they realized this project is so messed up, there are so many liens. There are so many אלטע חשבונות. This one owns it, and this one owns it, and this one owns it. The government owns it, the state, the federal, the city— everyone got a piece of it. You'll never get out of this mess. In other words, it's a bankrupt situation that is meant to stay bankrupt. חס ושלום, you try to take it out of bankruptcy, someone else will bankrupt you because there are so many people who have a claim. And they realized they were in over their heads. So לייבל says to בעריל, "I have an idea. Let's bring the Rebbe the money now, before the project starts. And if the Rebbe asks, we'll tell the Rebbe we're taking out insurance." Taking out insurance! Take out insurance! So they come to בנימין with a big shopping bag full of cash, and they give it to בנימין to send to the Rebbe. So בנימין says to them, "איז דאך נישט לאנג וואס איר האט געברענגט?" "You just recently brought in money. In other words, you just finished, you're just starting a new one." So tell them the מעשה, they got involved in a project, and they realized that this is, this is terrible. There's no way to get out of this project alive, it's a mess. So they decided to take out insurance. And they tell בנימין, "If the Rebbe asks, tell the Rebbe we're taking out insurance." Our insurance. So בנימין walks into the Rebbe. בנימין ע"ה... - הא? - "The train is broken!" He goes into the Rebbe, and he says, "This is from בעריל and לייבל." So the Rebbe says to בנימין, "איז דאך נישט לאנג וואס זיי האבן געברענגט?" So he tells him what they said, that they took on this project, and they realized after they got involved that there is a huge, huge, huge... Everybody's got a claim to this place, there's no way to get out of this alive. So they're taking out insurance. And you know what the Rebbe's reaction was? "אזא געוואלדיקע המצאה!" "אזא געוואלדיקע המצאה!" For three seconds, the Rebbe wasn't the Rebbe, he was a חסיד. "וואס א חאפ!" "אזא..." In other words, the Rebbe didn't answer like a Rebbe, he answered like a חסיד. "What an idea! אזא..." So he tells me, "We never had a project with fewer problems than that one." "אזא געוואלדיקע המצאה!" But the Rebbe's reaction, "אזא געוואלדיקע..." The Rebbe answered not like a Rebbe, like a חסיד. "וואס א חאפ!" You know, "What an idea!" And it worked.

But by his חתונה, he went to the רבי with his כלה. In פשטות I'll tell you the story, but those are the words. I heard it from him. I have a tape of it, I can send it if you want. ביסטו א מאטעמאטיקער. רעכן דיר אויס א גוט לעבן. ביסטו א מאטעמאטיקער, רעכן דיר אויס א גוט לעבן. I don't know what the כוונה was, but I'm sure it was... Say it in English. You're a mathematician, calculate for yourself a good life. אה! ביסטו א מאטעמאטיקער, רעכן דיר אויס א גוט לעבן. Anyway, so this לייבל זיסמאַן told me א געוואלדיגע מעשה.

I have a great story, I think it's a great story. I heard this story from the בעל המעשה himself. I'm sorry that I digress, but that's what a פאַרברענגען is. פאַרברענגענס are a digression from a digression. I used to sit by ר' מענדל פוטרפס. You want to see... You know what's tortured? ר' מענדל started a פאַרברענגען. I talk very fast. I say too much, I run out of material. ר' מענדל talked very slowly, and ר' מענדל was the master פאַרברענגער. He would come into a room, sit down, and start telling a story. Two seconds into the story, "What's your name?" You'd say "לחיים", he'd pick on somebody, he always had to have a קרבן. Because when I knew ר' מענדל, he couldn't drink anymore, so someone had to drink for him. So he had to find a קרבן. So the whole night he was bothering us to say לחיים. He started the פאַרברענגען with a story. It's 2:00 in the morning and you want to go to sleep, but you want to wait till the end of the story. To finish... The פאַרברענגען started with a story at 9:00 at night, and very, very often, 5:00 in the morning he still hadn't finished the story. And you'd say, "I want to go to sleep." He'd never finish. But anyway...

I'll tell you the story first. They listened, they listened, they listened... when you listen, it's good. When you don't listen, it's a disaster. He told me... I have a recording of him telling the stories. They're all in his book, but I sat with him an hour and a half. He talked and I actually kept quiet and I listened. And he talked and talked and talked and talked. It was '87, תשמ"ז, or תשמ"ח already. And there was a... something called, I think Miami... Miami Towers, two big buildings in Florida. Which you make an investment and you can build it up, and you can make a lot of money. A couple of people had been involved in this project, and they had bankrupted. The project was half finished, and someone was trying to sell it, and there was an opportunity to buy it cheap. And to finish the project and make a lot of money. And there were five investors, this goes back thirty-five years. Each one was going to put in a million dollars, which was a lot of money. And, um, he made a condition in the contract, that without a ברכה from the רבי, it's not happening. He was a שותף, his brother was a שותף, שמואל אלון was a שותף, and another couple of יידן. And it was in the contract, if the רבי doesn't approve, they're not doing the business. So he wrote to the רבי, and the רבי doesn't answer. So when he was a kid, he came from Europe, the רבי told him: אז דו וועסט עפעס דארפן זאלסטו קומען צו מיר. Anytime you need, you come to me. And the רבי treated him ממש special. The רבי told him: אז דו וועסט עפעס דארפן זאלסטו קומען צו מיר. Now to get... that he shouldn't get an answer from the רבי, was a פלא. Anyway, so he tells the חבר'ה we can't proceed until I get an answer. We're going to lose the deal! The rabbi's going to bless it... What does the rabbi know about two towers in Florida? He says... Anyway, he wrote again, and he wrote again, and he wrote again, and he wrote again, and מען האט אים משוגע געמאכט. Anyway, one morning he comes into 770, and he says to בנימין: "I can't. I'm holding up this whole project and I need an answer." The רבי had already gone to the מקוה. He was on his way out to the אהל. בנימין walks in to the רבי, and he said, "לייבל needs an answer." The רבי took... used to use the flaps of envelopes, the רבי didn't throw anything away. A... א שמאַטע פּאַפּירעל. A flap of an envelope, a piece of junk. But he used it to close, right? And he wrote: מה להם ולפיזור הנפש שלהם. מה להם... Meaning: what are you going to Florida? You have enough business in New York. מה להם ולפיזור הנפש שלהם. Maybe there were a few more words, like "what are you running to Florida?" בנימין walks out... the רבי went to the אהל two minutes later. בנימין walks out, hands him the paper. The answer made no sense, because the business opportunity looked very, very good. And the רבי's saying "what're you running to Florida, plenty of business in New York." Anyway, he came back to the חבר'ה, says "I'm out." If he was out, בערל was out, and מסתמא, I'm assuming שמואל אלון was out. A few weeks later was the crash. Stock market? The stock market. They would have lost everything. ... !האַ

And one of them, listen to this, one of them went into the Rebbe to יחידות, and he asked the Rebbe why you have to have a Rebbe. He asked the Rebbe, "Why you have to have a Rebbe?" He asked the Rebbe, "Why you have to have a Rebbe?" That's a גוטע קשיא. But he asked the Rebbe. So the Rebbe told him, the Rebbe told him, "In די יידן in רוסיה," this is 1968,