A Midnignt Meeting That Changed History: What If Trump and Bibi Were Around in 1938…

I was 12 years old at the time. [music] It was Simchas Torah 1984, 1:00 in the morning. I was sitting on a large plank of wood near the front of the synagogue at 770 [music] Eastern Parkway. Around 4 ft from where the Lubavitcher Rebbe was standing. >> [music] >> In the room there must have been around 6,000 men and another few thousand women in the women's section. There were many hundreds of children. Everybody came to celebrate Simchas Torah, to dance with the Torah, to celebrate Jewish life and love. The energy was charged, a spiritual vivaciousness filled the air. Like a conductor of a symphony, the Lubavitcher Rebbe would lead some [music] 10,000 souls in singing and dancing, celebrating God and his [music] Torah. That year, 1984, as the Rebbe came down to the dancing of the hakafot, the new young Israeli ambassador to the United Nations was present. His name was Bibi Netanyahu. As the Rebbe greeted the young ambassador, Netanyahu tells the Lubavitcher Rebbe, "I came to see you." "Only to see, not to speak?" The Rebbe smiled. "We can speak," Netanyahu said. So, the Rebbe begins to speak to him. The Rebbe speaks to him for 1 [music] minute, which was quite significant in that environment, and then 2 minutes, and 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, as a crowd [music] of close to 10,000 people are waiting with respect, singing songs, watching from afar. The Rebbe spoke about his challenging role at the United Nations. In 1984, when I was appointed Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, I visited the great rabbi of Lubavitch. He said to me, "You'll be serving in a house of many lies." And then he said, "Remember that even in the darkest place, the light of a single candle can be seen far and wide." Today, I hope that the light of truth will shine, if only for a few minutes, in a hall that for too long has been a place of darkness for my country. He also spoke of the historic error of Israeli leaders to show weakness and make compromises, sending the [music] message that terror can succeed. For half an hour, the Rebbe passionately and warmly [music] explained to the young diplomat that many Jewish leaders may have had good intentions, but they misread >> [music] >> the political and military reality. As they were stretching out their neck for peace, their neighbors were building infrastructures of terror with one aim, to obliterate Israel, heaven forbid. Israel, the Rebbe argued, needed a shift in posture, a complete makeover, to prevent [music] catastrophe. It would even be better for the Arabs, the Rebbe said, if the Jews finally developed a spiritual backbone and declared with unwavering resolve to the world that the land of Israel is God's eternal gift to his people. This is what would prevent >> [music] >> bloodshed and war. They finished the conversation, and the Rebbe got right into the singing and the dancing. For the third hakafa, the Rebbe asked that they give Bibi and his friends a Torah scroll. They all went to dance, and the crowd erupted in a very famous Chabad song, "V'chol ha'aretz yimaleh kavodcha." It's a verse from Psalms where we ask God that he cuts down forces of negativity, hatred, and evil, and lifts up the power of righteousness and goodness and holiness and kindness in the world. 41 years [music] have passed. A few days ago, I got a text from a friend, "Were you there when Bibi came for Simchas Torah?" "Yes," I said. The person asks me, "Could you explain to me why the Rebbe had to stop the entire hakafot? Thousands of people are waiting. Men, women, hundreds of children. It's 1:00 in the morning. And what was he talking about? Security, the United Nations, Arab neighbors, Israeli elections, Israeli prime ministers? He could have invited him to come for a private audience after the holidays." But the Rebbe, every minute was calculated, every second was calculated. I didn't know the answer. But then I had an epiphany. A tzaddik, a holy man, often has long-term vision. The Rebbe may have seen or felt something that night. Four decades later, on Simchas Torah, Israel would experience the worst massacre of Jews in one day since the Holocaust, all due to the fact that the position of true strength was not embraced, that Israel trusted its enemies [music] are seeking quiet as they were preparing for another Holocaust, God forbid. Perhaps the Rebbe felt that this young diplomat standing in front of him would one day need to find within his heart extraordinary resources of fortitude, faith, courage, resolve to stand up to the world, to stand up to Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and then confront and crush the head of the snake, Iran. Standing up to the Hitlers of our time with unwavering resolve, might, spiritual and military resilience. Imagine if someone had taken out Hitler and the top leaders of the Nazi Party, the SS, the Wehrmacht, and the German Air Force in 1938 and destroyed Hitler's war machine. The world woke up 6 years too late, after 6 million Jews have been killed and 60 million souls [music] have been snuffed out during the Second World War. In our times, by the grace of God, President Donald Trump [music] and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to wake up 6 years earlier to take down the [music] Hamans of Iran before they could kill 6 million or 60 million, heaven forbid. It's not simple or easy. There are moments in history when leaders are faced with a decision that can't be made based on regular political calculations. Moments when you need a feel that 3,500 years of history are on your side. God is on your side. Abraham, [music] Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Rabbi Akiva, Joshua, they're all behind you. Perhaps precisely then, in the presence of thousands of Jews in a holy [music] space of prayer, on the sacred and joyous night of Simchas Torah, the Rebbe felt this was the time to infuse Benjamin Netanyahu with the spirit of Netzach Israel, the divine eternity of our people and our homeland, because we never know how a soul gets affected at such moments, consciously or unconsciously. And then something happened I'll never forget till the end of my life. The Rebbe and his brother-in-law, they took a sefer Torah, a Torah scroll, and they went into the center of this hall, surrounded by all the Hasidim, and there was a light that shone from the ceiling and bathed them in a pool of light. And I see these two old, bearded Jews dancing in a circle of light with a Torah. And I felt the strength of generations, the power of our traditions, our faith, our people. And as I had this epiphany, four decades later, I suddenly grasped the words of the famous 16th century sage, the Maharal of Prague. He said, "Why is Passover night called the Seder night, the night of order and structure?" Let's face it, it's the most disorderly and chaotic night of the year, because it teaches us that there is [music] a deeper order to history and life. Even amidst the chaos, there is a secret divine order. The fact that we are here 3,500 years later still telling the story of divine freedom tells us there is a Seder, there is a transcendent order, even if we can't always see it. But God needs us as partners to loathe evil and be obsessed with goodness and kindness. May God grant >> [music] >> President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu the fortitude, the wisdom, the courage to obliterate evil and bring redemption to our people, to our countries, and to our world.