What We Did During Our Summer ‘Vacation’

Welcome to our weekly program. I want to dedicate these two programs — this week and next week — to one topic. Today I want to share with you a letter which I found in the archives of Rabbi Mindel. Somebody wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe answered with an amazing letter. If we have time today, I will share it with you; if not, I'll have to do the second part next week. But before I show you this letter, I want to give some background.

Merkos, in the 1950s and in the 1960s, when I was a bochur: in the summertime, starting from [a certain time] until the yahrzeit [?] of the Rebbe's father-in-law, we sat and learned the whole year. That was our — I don't know what to call it — our "vacation," but this is what we did.

So what did we do? We went, let's say, with a partner — another bochur — and every two bochurim went together. Before we went, we opened up a map of the United States, or a map of the world, and we chose a place. Let's say I would go to Ohio, this one chose Pennsylvania, this one New Jersey, this one New York, this one California, or maybe even overseas.

Then we went to Rabbi Hodakov — we needed his permission, of course — and if he agreed, he gave us guidelines. He gave us a check, money for the traveling, whatever it was, and we took with us samples. For three weeks we slept in the [shuls/batei medrash?] [?]. In those days, I don't think everybody went by plane — some people traveled by Greyhound bus from city to city. Let's say I remember I was in Cleveland, then I went to Columbus, so I went by bus from Cleveland to Columbus. So we covered a few cities here and there, but it was not like today.

We took with us Talks and Tales — the Rebbe himself said that Talks and Tales was number one. It was written by Rabbi Mindel, by him, for the Rebbe. And Talks and Tales was such that even if somebody didn't want to buy it, he should push it into the person's hand anyway.

We also took tefillin and most of the books that were written by Rabbi Mindel at that time, and we took samples, and that's how we sold — we took orders, and that's how we went. In those days there were very few beards, not like today, and we would walk in the heat, going from place to place.

This was the Merkos work we did — and in those three weeks we accomplished a lot. How did people find out about us? We came into a city, we went to the newspaper, and we said, "We are from New York," and we gave them a telephone number — I don't remember exactly how it all worked — and we also went to the shuls. We displayed what we had, and over three weeks people bought. It's unbelievable how much we accomplished in those three weeks.

So here I want to share with you what the Rebbe said about the importance of this. The Rebbe said it in Yiddish, and I'm going to translate it into English:

When a Jew sits in his house and looks through the window and sees a bochur with a beard — a bochur with a beard — it reminds him of his father, how his father looked, and he remembers what his father told him: that every morning when you get up you should say [Modeh Ani], and when you go to sleep you should say [Shema]. And when he thinks about this, it inspires him in his thoughts and in his actions.

Then the Rebbe said: when a child comes home and tells his father or mother that he saw a bochur with a beard selling Talks and Tales, and the bochur wanted to put a Talks and Tales into his hand but he didn't let himself take it — when the child tells this to his father and mother, at that moment they remember their own parents, because people had parents who came from [Europe], and you know, this was in the '50s and in the '60s, and now, unfortunately, people forget about their parents and grandparents.

Then the Rebbe related: a young man, a tamim, told the Rebbe that there was once a conservative rabbi — he didn't become a Lubavitcher, but he liked the Rebbe. You know the way the Rebbe, when he gives out [dollars], doesn't leave out a single person — he wouldn't stop until everyone had been given to. People used to stretch out their hands, and the Rebbe never leaned back. Before Mincha, he would put a handkerchief around his finger [to count]. This rabbi saw all these things.

This rabbi was a teacher, or a principal, in a school, and he had to tell his children stories that would interest them. So he told them that there are people who are called [Lubavitcher chassidim], and he told them about their hanhagos — their customs: that they learn before davening, afterward they daven a long time, and then they learn a shiur, and then they drink [lechaim] — that's what the Rebbe said. And the children heard all this and they asked the rabbi, "Are these people who live today — are they here in America, or are they from Europe?" So he told them, "No, there are people now in America who do this." The children said they didn't believe it — that there could be such a thing, such people — that maybe it was only in Europe.

So the rabbi tried to find a way to convince the children, until he remembered someone — this person, by the way, was the one who told the rabbi the story in the first place — so he went over to him and said, "I want to ask you a favor: come to my school. Just come, don't do anything, don't say anything — just come, so the children can see. You don't have to do anything."

So he went — he was mesugal [willing] — and when this young man, with a long beard, as the Rebbe said, came into the school, the rabbi said to the children, "Do you remember I told you a story about [such people]? Here he is — here is an example." So they looked him up and down, this man with the long beard. He didn't say anything. Then the children started to ask him questions. "Are you [one of them]?" He said, "Yes," and he answered them, and they kept asking more and more questions, and they became very interested. Later on the children were so excited, and when they came home, they told their parents this whole story.

This is connected to what the Rebbe writes about here. What I'm trying to say is that this is what we did — someone would see us, and in those days there weren't too many beards around in the '50s and '60s, and the impact this had was unbelievable. And this was our summer vacation.

Even later, in the 1980s, sometimes people had time off and they went home, but we did not — we went, as the Rebbe wanted, to this work of giving out [mivtzoim material and tefillin] before [the Yom Tov/holidays], and sometimes the Rebbe told us that we should go for a week or two, and not only that — he gave us people to write to, and a lot came out of that.

So I wanted to read a letter today, but there is no time for it in this program — I'll do it next time. How I was involved in one of the [shlichus] stories, this later connects — and next week, in the second program, we will continue, and I will share with you the letter that someone wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe's answer, and the story of how it came about. Thank you.