AS: You met with Reb Meilech before embarking on this sefer. What was it like, meeting this unique Torah personality?

YB: It wasn’t exactly like a meeting. It was more like joining him on his nightly route, as he moved quickly from a shivah house R’l, to a wedding, to the simchah of an orphan, and then on to the next simchah — while snatching conversations in between.

AS: Reb Meilech’s Torah — and stories! — speak to Jews of all types. Where does that power come from?

YB: I certainly can’t answer that, but every sort of Jew — gedolim and simple Jews whom I would never have pegged as “Reb Meilech people” — told me that Reb Meilech’s Torah carries them through the week.

AS: In Around the Year with Reb Meilech, you combine Reb Meilech’s Torah and stories with descriptions of how he transmits them — his body language, gestures, and songs. How does that enhance the reader’s experience?

YB: It’s an attempt to convey some of the magic and “chein” of his shiurim and gatherings, though of course there is a “baal peh” aspect that cannot be completely described.

AS: The sefer follows the Jewish calendar: a full year of inspiration. Since we’re at the beginning of Chodesh Elul, can you share a brief vort from Reb Meilech to take with us as we approach the Yamim Noraim?

YB: The pasuk in Tehillim (126:2-3) describes the reaction of the nations to Mashiach’s arrival: Az yomru ba’goyim, higdil Hashem laasos im eileh. They will say among the nations, the Lord has done great things with these.

When the great day will come, the Lelover Rebbe said, the nations will wonder, “Why them? What made the Jewish nation deserving?”

And our response will be: Higdil Hashem laasos imanu. Do you know why Hashem performed great deeds for us? Because hayinu se’meichim — we were happy.

We are not the only nation that is happy, but we are the only nation that toils to be happy, that makes simchah a goal, that has the courage and valor to work to be happy even when it not easy. And that zechus will give us the right to genuinely rejoice.

Teshuvah, too, should be done with simchah — joy because Hashem gives us the gift of becoming close to Him — and these days of awe should be approached with this simchah, for it is our eternal zechus.

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