“Breaking the Ice” in America

Historic Treasures: "Breaking the Ice" in America

Good Shabbos — welcome to our weekly program, Historic Treasures of Chabad in America through the Mindel Archives.

In 1940, when the Frierdiker Rebbe was on the ship coming to America, he told Rabbi Hodakov and Rabbi Mindel that "America" comes from the word "Amerika" — an empty nation. America is a piece of ice, and we're coming to break the ice of America.

Those days, 1940, were different than today in America. Baruch Hashem, thank G-d, today we have many yeshivas in America — Talmud Torahs, mikvaos, kashrus — Yiddishkeit grew in America. But in 1940, it was not the same way. People worked Friday; they had to finish their work, because they wouldn't take them back again if they didn't work on Shabbos. So it was a very, very difficult time.

And here the Frierdiker Rebbe, after being imprisoned in Russia and after all he went through, was coming now to America to break the ice. And this is what he told Rabbi Hodakov and Rabbi Mindel — that with them, they were coming to break the ice of America.

When they came to America, after almost a year, that's when the Rebbe came — our Rebbe, who was then called the Ramash. The first thing that they did was they established Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, Machne Israel, and Agudas Chassidei Chabad. In the future we will discuss how Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch was established and who was present at those meetings. Also, the logo of Kehot — this logo has special significance because it was chosen by the Rebbeim. So not everybody can use the Kehot logo.

Rabbi Mindel and Rabbi Hodakov both come from the same school — they come from Riga. They had the same mindset: they were loyal, honest, modest, no politics. And they were great keepers of secrets — ba'alei sod. The Rebbe chose them because of this.

As a matter of fact, when Rabbi Mindel was in my home many times, I asked him, "You know, you worked with the Frierdiker Rebbe, you worked with the Rebbe, you spoke to him on the phone from his home in Long Beach — can you tell me something?" He never said anything. Whatever we do know is because he used to write everything down. And when he passed away, I found the archives, and that's what I have, that we can discuss in our programs.

Now, the Rebbe said that since Rabbi Hodakov and Rabbi Mindel came with the Rebbe to America, whenever a siddur is printed — Tehillat Hashem, Nusach Ari — in the back there should always be the page about Tefillin, and also the page of Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch's fifteen points, for which Merkos is responsible.

There, the Frierdiker Rebbe was the Nossi, Rabbi Hodakov was Menahel, and Rabbi Mindel was the Mazkir Rishon. Before the Histalkus, the Frierdiker Rebbe was Nossi, the Rebbe was Yoshev Rosh of the Vaad HaPoel, Rabbi Hodakov was Menahel, and Rabbi Mindel was the Mazkir Rishon. And now it is the Rebbe who is the Nossi, Rabbi Hodakov is Menahel, and Rabbi Mindel is on the Vaad HaPoel. This is how the Rebbe wanted it, and it should always be in the back of the siddur.

Now I will show you — this is the siddur that the Rebbe always wanted this page to remain in, this page, and also this page with the fifteen points. By the way, while I have this siddur — this siddur was from Purim of the year Tof-Shin-Alef, where the Rebbe gave it to seven people, including Rabbi Zalman Shazar, when he came to the Rebbe.

In Rabbi Mindel's archives, we have very rich material: minutes of meetings, notations, telegrams, stories, diaries, photos, and many more. Rabbi Mindel left everything in my reshus. So we are going to share with you, in these programs, some of this material. All the material that I will discuss in this program, now and in the future, comes from the source — it comes from the Frierdiker Rebbe, the previous Rebbe, or from the Rebbe, our Rebbe, or from Rabbi Hodakov, or from Rabbi Nissan Mindel — what they wrote or what they said.

And here I want to share with you an answer from the Rebbe that he told Rabbi Mindel to give to a certain person. In 1953, a person traveled out of town. He was out of town for three months, then he came home for a week, and then he went back again — that was his job. I don't know exactly what his job was, whether it was chinuch or business. He asked the Rebbe for a bracha for hatzlacha.

The Rebbe told Rabbi Mindel to answer him with a story, and this I read in the writings of Rabbi Mindel. The Rebbe said that years ago — whether it was the time of the Baal Shem Tov or the Alter Rebbe, I didn't catch the name, it was erased, but it was around that time — there was a baal agalah, a wagon driver. The baal agalah, after some time, went for a few months to do business or chinuch, I don't know what, and he asked the Rebbe for a bracha for hatzlacha.

So the Rebbe told him he should become a maggid — he should give speeches, he should speak to people. He says to the Rebbe, "I'm a baal agalah. I've never spoken in public, and I'm not a big talker." So the Rebbe says, "You should be like a bee and not like a spider." He says to the Rebbe, "I don't know what that means."

So the Rebbe told him: it says that anything that comes from a kosher animal is kosher. Milk from a behemah, from a cow, is kosher, because the cow is kosher. Milk from a chazir, from a pig, is treif, because a pig is treif. Why is it that honey is kosher, and a bee is treif? The difference, the Rebbe says, between a spider and a bee: a spider makes a web, and the web comes from inside the spider. What does the web do? Nothing — it kills flies, and it holds; it doesn't accomplish anything. That comes from inside the spider.

Honey does not come from the bee. If honey would come from the bee, honey would be treif. A bee collects nectar, and it becomes honey, but the honey is not from the bee. If you are going to collect — you're going to learn different sforim, collect mussar sforim, the Rebbe said, Chassidus, nigleh, stories of tzaddikim — and you'll say it over the way it says, you're not going to put in any of your own opinions, and you're going to say it over, it will be like honey, and you'll have hatzlacha.

And this is the answer the Rebbe gave to this person who asked him about hatzlacha and his Chassidus. The Rebbe said to Rabbi Mindel that even the Alter Rebbe, who wrote the Tanya, says in the hakdamah that "I took it from different sforim — I am a collector." So the Tanya was written drawing from different sforim, the Shelah HaKadosh, and the Arizal.

What is the lesson here? How careful we need to be when we say over a vort, when we say over Chassidus, when we say a maaseh from the Rebbe — very, very careful not to put in your own opinion, not to polish up the story. As the Rebbe writes in many letters, many people take a story or they take a vort and they try to present it in a nice way so that they can polish it up — they can say it's their opinion — but the story has to be the way the story is, and not changed, not have different facts. That's number one.

Number two, I want to say here — in letter and in spirit, if you look, many times the Rebbe writes that the message is important and not the messenger. Sometimes people, maybe out of ego or maybe other reasons, want to showcase the messenger, but that's not important — the Rebbe says the message is important.

I remember my father, alav hashalom, who came from Cleveland, and he spoke to many people there — people who were not Chabad — and the Rebbe said, "Say Chassidus, don't say who it comes from. Just say it the way it is, Chassidus," and told him he would be matzliach. The Rebbe says that many times when he told a story, he would say, "I heard it from my shver," because it has to be accurate, has to be exact.

Our program is going to be such that whatever we say comes from the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Rebbe, Rabbi Hodakov, Rabbi Mindel. I hope that this program will strengthen our connection to the Rebbe and to Hashem. Next week we'll continue again.