Connecting the anniversary

Tonight is the fourteenth of Kislev, the Rebbe's wedding anniversary, and in honor of that Rabbi Chaim Schapiro, who has received plenty of praise on this blog in the past, deigned to farbreng with us, his faithful students. It was of course an excellent farbrengen, and if course it would be impossible to give it over to you the way I got it. Whether this is a chisaron in me or whether it's unavoidable I haven't yet determined, but be that as it may, I suppose I'll just write down whatever it is that I can. Oh, and whoever it is that was by the farbie also, please, add whatever I skipped out.

There was once a bochur who visited someone or other in Miami who, when he he found out who exactly it was that was visiting him, said, "What? A Lubavitcher apikores?" The bochur asked why exactly he was an apikores. The guy related that he had heard a story of two bochurim on Merkos Shlichus who were stuck in some kosher food forsaken place, and they were getting desperate. Eventually they came to a grocery store, and prepared to buy some food that, while kosher, wasn't exactly up to Lubavitch's standards. One of the bochurim, as he pulled his money out of his wallet, saw a picture of the Rebbe and ceased and desisted, realizing that he could continue to live on bell peppers and apricots for the foreseeable future.
The bochur who was listening to this story was impressed, but the story teller wasn't. "Of G-d, who says that this food is kosher, he's not afraid, but of a Rebbe, a man of flesh and blood who says that it is ossur, he's afraid? Apikorsus!"
The bochur said, "What's the problem? We have a clear proof for such behavior from the Torah itself! Yosef the tzaddik, when he was about to sin, saw his father's face, and he too stopped himself. Are you calling Yosef an apikores?"

The point, my friends, is that we are people, and we relate to people. It's all very good to have a big G-d up there, but if we can't internalize it, or even relate to it, what good will be done?
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A chossid once came to the third Rebbe of Lubavitch, the Tzemach Tzedek, and complained that he didn't believe in the existence of G-d. The Tzemach Tzedek said, "Tell me, you ever saw the czar?" The chossid answered that he had not. The Rebbe then asked him if he believed in the existence of the czar. The chossid answered affirmatively. The Rebbe asked him how he knew. "Well," said the chossid, "I know Ivan the furrier, and his cousin's third brother thrice removed and four times reconstituted saw the czar in S. Petersburg once. So, obviously he exists." The Tzemach Tzedek answered him then, "If so, you can take it on my word that there is a G-d."

This is similar to another story, with much the same plot, though presumably with a different chossid. The Rebbe asked his chossid, "Why do you care if you believe in Hashem or not?" "But Rebbe," cried out the chossid, "a Jew has to believe in Hashem!" The Tzemach Tzedek said, "If that's your answer, then you'll be okay."
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Once by farbrengen the Tzemach Tzedek mentioned a special hell that is looks exactly like this world, so the soul thinks it's in this lowly world of ours, but in fact it's totally fake. One chossid (and I'm undoubtedly a gilgul of this guy), said, "But Rebbe! How do we know that this world isn't that fake world in hell?" The Rebbe said, "Fool! Would I be here if that was the case?"
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There are many different types of people with a connection to Lubavitch, and the question has therefore arisen, "Who is a Lubavitcher chossid?" The answer is very simple: whoever can make a chilul Shem lubavitch, can desecrate the name of lubavitch, is a lubavitcher.
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Money is like a toilet. It's a wonderful thing to have, very useful too, but at the end of the day, it stinks pretty badly, and anyone who spends too much time involved with it has issues.
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So once the good Rabbi was reading a "litvish" magazine for bochurim, and it mentioned tips for bein hazmanim. It recommended that you always have a mesechta ready to claim as the one you're learning, and furthermore, to say that you're learning one of the later dafim, e.g. 80, because everyone knows the first few dafim of a mesechta well, but after that you should be safe. But just be careful that the mesechta you choose actually has a daf 80!
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These were the words of the good rabbi. All right, he said a lot more, but unfortunately my recording instrument at the time losses it's capability's to record because of insufficient battery power. Oh well. Just know that he farbrenged well, even if he did focus a bit too much on what comes after smicha, which I have no interest in discussing right now...