In a new episode of Among Chassidim, Rabbi Simon Jacobson opens a door into several worlds at once: the old world of Georgian Chassidim, the newsroom of his father R’ Gershon Ber Jacobson, the charged atmosphere of 770, and the intense work of remembering and transcribing the Rebbe’s farbrengens.

The conversation isn’t a formal biography. Rabbi Jacobson tells the story the way a chossid tells it, with names, places, turns in history, and the sense that one person’s life is never only his own. A zeide’s meeting with the Rebbe Rashab. A father’s quiet work in the press. A young bochur searching for something real. Pages of the Rebbe’s sichos coming back with edits.

Rabbi Jacobson delves deep into his family’s history, starting with his grandfather, a Georgian Jew whose life changed after he encountered the Rebbe Rashab in Rostov. That connection drew him into Lubavitch, and later placed him among the elite group of individuals who pledged to uphold Yiddishkeit in Soviet Russia with mesiras nefesh.

That background shaped the family.

From his mother’s side, Rabbi Jacobson speaks about the well-known Lipsker family, including his grandfather, Reb Yankel Lipsker, a legend in his own right.

Rabbi Jacobson’s father, R’ Gershon Ber Jacobson, whose work as a journalist placed him in a highly unusual position, is also a major topic of discussion.

As a respected journalist and later the founder and editor of the Algemeiner Journal, R’ Gershon Ber had access to government figures, news wires, and diplomatic circles. The Rebbe saw that this access provided unique potential.

Rabbi Jacobson describes how his father maintained a confidential relationship with the Rebbe, serving at times as a source of information and a quiet channel in matters that reached well beyond Crown Heights.

Rabbi Jacobson then turns inward, speaking with unusual openness about his own youth in Crown Heights and how he discovered Chassidus as the key that made everything come alive.

Eventually, he joined a small team working on a major research project commissioned by the Rebbe: to organize the teachings of the Tzemach Tzedek in a systematic way. Soon after, he became involved in chazara. Beginning in the late 1970s, he served for years as one of the chozrim, standing at farbrengens and absorbing hours of sichos, often on Shabbos and Yom Tov when no recordings could be made.

Rabbi Jacobson describes how the Rebbe reviewed the transcripts with extraordinary precision. A word, a phrase, an emphasis, a missing step in the logic; the Rebbe’s edits trained them to understand how a sicha was built.

As we approach Gimmel Tammuz, there’s no better time to reflect on our learning and sharing of the Rebbe’s Torah.

This episode was recorded live at the recent Regional Kinus Hashluchim of New York and New England.

Listen to it here.