The Follow-up the Rebbe’s Mazkirim Suggested

The Follow-up the Rebbe's Mazkirim Suggested

Welcome to our weekly program, "The Inside Story of Chabad in America," through the Mindel archives.

We once said that in Riga, the Frierdiker Rebbe begged Rabbi Nissan Mindel to come with him on the ship to America. He said to him, "Chassidus is a closed book. It's written in Loshon Kodesh, in Hebrew. Most of the people in the world speak English. We have to open up Chassidus to the world, and you," he says to Rabbi Mindel, "are the one, you're the one that is to do it." I remember the Frierdiker Rebbe wanted him to come with him. This was before the war.

So, as I mentioned once, they took a small plane with eleven people from Riga to Sweden, and from Sweden they went onto the ship, onto the boat, and they came to America in 1940. Of course, I told the whole story already, that in that plane there were seventeen seats, and the Frierdiker Rebbe wanted to fill up the seats. He was waiting for everybody, because it was the last plane before the war.

The Frierdiker Rebbe was holding manuscripts on his lap. He didn't let go of those manuscripts. I mean, he had other things too, so he put those away, but these manuscripts he kept holding. Later on he gave them to the Rebbe, to the Ramash, so that he should give them to Rabbi Nissan Mindel, and they should work on them together.

Rabbi Mindel had never learned Tanya before — can you imagine, a person who never learned Tanya, and the Rebbe tells him, "I want you to translate Tanya into English"? You have to know Tanya to translate it, and he wants him to translate it. So the Rebbe, our Rebbe, gave him the manuscripts, and he worked together with him with these manuscripts, and that's how he wrote the Tanya in English, to form the first parts of the Tanya in English.

And this is — the boat. Now, what am I getting at with this ship? There were a lot of Yidden there — a lot from France, from Riga, from Sweden, from Germany, many Yidden. So Rabbi Mindel, Rabbi Hodakov — we're discussing here — these are Yidden, and they saw the Frierdiker Rebbe, they were on the boat. This is a kli we can work with. Even though those Yidden are already [no longer with us], they have children, and they have grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or uncles or aunts — they have those. So why don't we — why doesn't Agudas Chassidei Chabad get together [on this] — here are people that will be able to [help], if they heard from their father or their grandfather. Probably they did. He told me they were days and days on the same ship as the Rebbe, so they probably saw things, maybe they spoke to the Rebbe, maybe they saw the way everyone [was] — they have some kind of feeling here, there is.

So he said, why don't Agudas Chassidei Chabad, or Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, or Machne Israel get together — that's what they should do — and work with those Yidden. There is a list — I have the list of the people who were on the ship. I'm sure Merkos should have it too, I'm almost sure — that's number one. Also, I have in my possession from Rabbi Mindel — and Merkos has the names of all the people who wrote to the Rebbe and to the Frierdiker Rebbe from 1940 — thousands of letters [unclear] — so he has the names, and I'm sure Merkos has the names, or whatever they're [calling it].

I know exactly how, but here are people, and if they had a connection to the Rebbe, so the children maybe also heard of the Rebbe, the children maybe also heard of the Frierdiker Rebbe. This is something that we — that we should get together, they should get together and work [on].

Let me tell you what I did. I decided a while ago to take some of the names and call them up. Now, how do I get them? It took a long time, because they're not here, but I know — I know a name, sometimes I have addresses for them. For [unclear] the address side, there are addresses, so maybe I got in touch. Since they're not there, it took a long, long time, but I got through also. So I found some children, some nephews, some grandchildren, and I called them up, some of them. And I said — I mean, it's hard work, I'm not going to do it [alone] — and I said to them my name, I said, "You know, you heard of Rabbi Schneerson?" "Sure, we heard from my grandfather, from my grandmother," the bubbe. Some of them were related, but they're scattered around the world, they're all over, the children.

But here are names, people who wrote to the Rebbe, have descendants, and they definitely spoke to the children afterward, the children. They should get the list — and they have the list, they have the list, and they should work on the list, aside from the ship, and maybe from [other sources] that I [reached], I don't know. But I'm not afraid of [unclear] — I have, and all the people who had a shaychus to that, to their own children, their grandchildren — push it, you can open it up, it could be a goldmine.

And one of the people I was in touch with — he lives somewhere, who knows where — but he started to put on film one person. Most of them are probably not [filmed], but if you hear "Rabbi Schneerson," and they heard it from the father, this is the biggest treasure.