Merkos Beginnings in a Single Room

Welcome to our weekly program, "The Inside Story of Chabad in America," through the Mindel archives. Baruch Hashem, our weekly Thursday night program is over a year, maybe even fifteen months, and many people email me that they're pleased to hear a lot of new things from the archives. Many of them had a letter from the Rebbe, and they lost the letter, or their parents lost the letter, or their grandparents lost the letter. Since Rabbi Mindel took dictation of the Igros Kodesh — most of the Igros Kodesh English letters — they ask me if I have a copy, and sometimes I find it and I'm pleased to give it to them. Baruch Hashem for that.

I get calls, the last few weeks, from some people — they watch the programs, but they want to know: when the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin came to America, what happened, how did they establish themselves, where did they live, what did the Rebbe do for parnassa? Now, the truth of the matter is much of this is already written, already printed, but I found a letter that Rabbi Mindel wrote in 1944 to the Frierdiker Rebbe about setting up Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, and I will share this in a few minutes.

But before that, I want to say that when the Rebbe arrived in America with the Rebbetzin, the Frierdiker Rebbe asked Rabbi Shmuel [?] — I'm not sure of the name — that they should go and be mekabel panim, to greet his son-in-law, who was expert — clear — in the entire Talmud Bavli, in the entire Talmud Yerushalmi, with all the meforshim, [unclear], and Kabbalah. No one really knew this, because he was very modest. It was a big honor, and nobody knew the Rebbe, but when the Frierdiker Rebbe told them who the Rebbe was, they looked at the Rebbe differently — they were in awe. I mean, they saw what the Frierdiker Rebbe told them, that they should be mekabel panim upon him, that his son-in-law was expert in everything.

So when they came to 770 — first they came to 770, then they came to the house. The Frierdiker Rebbe lived on the second floor, with his mother, Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah, who was still alive; she passed away in the year Tashab, 1942. And — we spoke about Mania, we spoke about the Frierdiker Rebbe's connection to Mania — and the third floor, Rashag, the Frierdiker Rebbe's oldest son-in-law, lived on the third floor.

So they came to 770, and they gave the Rebbe a room — his yechidus room; everybody knows where the Rebbe's yechidus room was — that room was his bedroom. At night it was a bedroom; in the daytime this room was an office. So the Rebbe and Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka used to spend all day upstairs, together with Mania — that's why she got close to Mania, very close — and Mania was the nurse of the Rebbetzin, his mother, and she was also close to Chana, the Rashag's wife. So they spent the day upstairs, and the daytime was an office.

Now, also in those years, the Frierdiker Rebbe — I don't know how many Wednesdays, but there was a while that every Wednesday the Frierdiker Rebbe said a maamar into a microphone in that yechidus room of the Rebbe.

Now, the Rebbe worked in the Navy Yard here for parnassa. He went to the Navy Yard, and this was his parnassa. On the weekends, or after work, many times he went to Manhattan. There was a doctor, Dr. Alexander — I think he was on [Weston Avenue?] — he was a big doctor, a lung doctor, and he had an office in his house, and his wife, [Feiga?], was the nurse. So when the refugees came from Europe, people were broken, they were sick, and they came to be cured by the doctor. So the Rebbe was in that office — I don't know how the Rebbe got to the office — and the Rebbe helped the people, he spoke to them, he helped them begashmius, he helped them through this doctor.

There was one person — I'm not mentioning his name — when the Rebbe became Rebbe in '51, the Rebbe sent him to this Dr. Alexander. So he came to this doctor and said to the doctor, "I was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe." The doctor's wife, who is still alive, was there, so they explained to her, and she said, "That's the Rabbi that came to us, such a wonderful person, how he helped people." This is something instructive that I wanted to mention.

Also another thing, which is interesting: we put on tefillin — we put on Rashi tefillin and Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. We take off the Rashi tefillin after davening — we take off the Rashi tefillin before Mussaf, and we put on the Rabbeinu Tam tefillin — that's before Mussaf. When he came to America the first time, Shacharis — his yechidus room is 770 —

And the Frierdiker Rebbe put on four pairs of tefillin, and the Rebbe was so careful — he didn't want people to see that he put on four pairs of tefillin, so he would hide in a corner and put it on so that people should not see. Why? Because the Frierdiker Rebbe told the Rebbe to put on four pairs of tefillin, and only a guf naki — a clean, pure body — puts on four pairs of tefillin. So this was the Rebbe, but the Rebbe didn't want people to see; but people saw anyway.

Also, every week, an hour before Kabbalas Shabbos and an hour after Havdalah, the Rebbe went to the Frierdiker Rebbe, almost every week, and because he wrote [unclear] of the Rebbe, he went many times.

Now let's go back to Merkos — how the Rebbe established Merkos, how Merkos was established. So, as we said, at night it was a bedroom; in the daytime it was an office. Who worked in the office? Rabbi Mindel worked together with the Rebbe. Number one, the Tanya — he translated the Tanya. The Frierdiker Rebbe told him, as we once mentioned, that the Tanya is in Hebrew, and chassidus is a closed book, because most of the Jews in the world don't know Hebrew. So the Frierdiker Rebbe asked him to translate the Tanya into English. And Rabbi Mindel had never — excuse me — he was involved in the yeshiva under [unclear], so how did he know Tanya, to translate it? So the Frierdiker Rebbe told the Rebbe to be with him and to give him manuscripts, and that's how Rabbi Mindel learned the Tanya, so he was able to work together with the Rebbe on the Tanya.

This is very significant. And where did they work? In the yechidus room — that was, I guess, in that room. I mentioned once, when the first Tanya came out in English, there was Sputnik — this was in the early '60s, late '50s — and Rabbi Mindel gave the Rebbe the Tanya for the first time, and the Rebbe said, regarding Sputnik — "The first Tanya came out, you make a big fuss over Sputnik; the first Tanya came out — there was a big thing." So they worked in that room.

Also, the hanhagos of the Rebbe were worked on in that room. In those days it was difficult — even the people, the amratzus [ignorance] was very big — so that had been made together with Rabbi Mindel, in English, a Kitzur. And the Kitzur — I think I already printed it, and I think we need more copies — a Kitzur of the hanhagos of the Rebbe. That was done in that room.

"Talks and Tales," which is written — the Frierdiker Rebbe said, this was like a maamar — the Frierdiker Rebbe said, I think I mentioned it, that when he reads "The Wonders of Nature," the wonderful nature story, he gets yiras shamayim — that's how important and holy "Talks and Tales" was. It was written by Rabbi Mindel, where? In the yechidus room.

The HaYom Yom that we gave out for children — the difference between that and the encyclopedia for children is: the encyclopedia is a collection that Rabbi Mindel collected from the Frierdiker Rebbe's sayings, and he put a different saying every day; but in HaYom Yom, the Frierdiker Rebbe put in himself, his own thought, whatever belonged to that day. Also the letters were written there, and [unclear] was one of the first that — Rabbi Mindel wrote everything; it was all written in that room.

Now, while Rabbi Mindel was working on that, Rabbi Hodakov had to distribute the material — that was his job. He worked on Talks and Tales, but it had to be sent out, so he had to find people to send out Talks and Tales and the other things. So this was his job. I mean, all the people who came later to assist were not without their part in this.

Now, while Merkos was growing, the Frierdiker Rebbe and the Rebbe asked Rabbi Mindel to work all day in Merkos. Rabbi Mindel worked a few hours — Merkos needed him to work for them — but how can you work? You can't work; you need a secretary, you need a typewriter, you need all these things, and they didn't have it.

So, I'm going to read you a short letter — I'm going to read the letter to the Frierdiker Rebbe. This was written in 1944, written in Hebrew, and I will translate it into English. This was written on Erev Shabbos, Parshas [unclear], 1944:

"Kvod Kedushas Admur, greeting and blessing. The Rabbi is surely aware" — meaning the Frierdiker Rebbe — "of the technical challenges we are facing working in Merkos, an organization which, Baruch Hashem, has spread and grown, and especially as the operation has remained the same as when Merkos was first established, that has caused setbacks and losses. In brief, the basic things that are lacking:

"There is no orderly office — there is no office. There is no suitable secretary — you need a secretary to answer phones, to type. There are not sufficient hands to assist in the publication of material, and this results in delays, literally until minutes before Shabbos, at which point there is no time for distribution, because you need people for that. There is no warehouse for the printing material, which is now lying in piles all over the office — in the hall, and also in the room; the Merkos room was an empty room. There is no administrator in charge, and no fundraiser.

"We already discussed the above matters with the Rebbe, who is familiar with the nature of the situation. Understandably, there are great hurdles, among them financial, which stand in the way of bettering the situation. In my opinion, there is much that can be done to improve the situation, and we should certainly make the effort to improve it and fill the gap. And although it would initially entail expenses, experience has proven that these expenses would not have been spent in vain, but rather every penny will be returned double and triple-fold.

"I believe I would be able to correct much of the lack enumerated above, given the necessary resources, and I therefore suggest the following: I am prepared to accept a position in Merkos of thirty hours a week, in addition to my work in Tomchei Tmimim" — that's all he could give then, though later he worked almost twenty-four hours — "We will rent a room near 770 for an office; the cost of this would be approximately ten dollars a week, and will include a telephone. Setting up the office will not be more than a hundred dollars. Hire a secretary, whose responsibility would be: number one, assist me in my literary work, like typing; and number two, reply to correspondence. The cost of this will be thirty-five dollars a week. Until we find a fundraiser, I would undertake this task in the interim, of course with the participation of the Ramash and [Rabbi Hodakov?], since no action can be done without their approval. The suggestion and conditions mentioned above are connected, one to another."

And then he signs his name.

So here he wrote this, and this is how Merkos started, in that room. And then later on, as we know, that room had — Rabbi Hodakov was in the room, Rabbi Mindel was in the room, and Rabbi [Rochester?] I think was in the room later; years later there was Rabbi Krinsky. Those rabbis — yeah, Rabbi [Groner?] — they came later to help out Rabbi Mindel and to help out Rabbi Hodakov. And this is how it started.

So this is an answer to the people who want to know something, at least how it went when the Rebbe came to America, how they set up Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch. Next week we will continue our weekly program. Thank you.