3. Each of the descriptive Divine Names and epithets1 comprises (a) the Name itself and (b) its expanded spelling.2 The Name itself is essentially higher than its milui. That is true in general. However, it is specifically the milui of a Divine Name that empowers a mortal to ascend from one level to the next.

[To this the Rebbe added:] When I read the first pidyon nefesh, in it I already read the second pidyon nefesh, too.

4. My father’s orderly conduct included firmly-established customs, most of which had been handed down from Rebbe to Rebbe. For example: After Maariv on the First Night of Rosh HaShanah, in addition to his responses to those who davened with him in shul, when he came home he would say to every individual, including the very young children, Leshanah tovah tikasev veseichasem – “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year!”

5. Customs handed down from fathers, and especially from the fathers of Chassidus and the fathers of chassidim, include (a) some customs whose rationale – and the circumstances that explain why they were instituted – is remembered, and (b) some customs whose rationale and background have been forgotten. An allusion to the first kind may be seen in the phrase, “Ask your father and he will inform you,” and an allusion to the second kind may be seen in the continuation of that verse, “[ask] your elders and they will tell you.”3

Nevertheless, “A Jewish custom is Torah,”4 because the realm of Torah comprises two kinds of knowledge – the kind in which a mortal mind can have some grasp of the meaning of the mitzvah, and the kind that is simply stipulated by the Halachah, beyond the reach of mortal understanding.

[Customs practiced by the Rebbe Rayatz:] At the evening and daytime seudos of the First Day of Rosh HaShanah the Rebbe did not speak; he read the haftarah on both days; he said LaMenatzeiach…5 and the verses and the blessings that precede the Sounding of the Shofar; when indicating the sequence of the various blasts of the Shofar for the benefit of the person sounding it he did not name them orally but merely pointed to their names in the Siddur.6 The Rebbe also intoned the three verses that follow the Sounding of the Shofar, though not the verse that begins, Ashrei yoshvei…