The Frierdiker Rebbe’s Recounting of His Interrogation

Transcript

Welcome to our weekly Motzei Shabbos program. We're now in the month of Adar. This month is also the month that the Frierdiker Rebbe came to America, and we'll talk about it in more detail next week, but I just want to mention today a little history.

The Frierdiker Rebbe came with eleven people from Riga — he took a plane, then he went to Sweden, and then he took the boat to America, and he had with him eleven people. They arrived in America after being on the boat about thirteen days, I think. This was the last plane before the war, and also the last boat, from Riga. When he took the plane it was a small plane, sixteen passengers, and he had with him eleven people. He was holding manuscripts on his lap the whole time — his tallis and tefillin he put away on top, but the manuscripts he didn't let go of. This is all written by Rabbi Mindel, because he was one of the eleven people who came.

With him was the Rashag, the son-in-law of the Frierdiker Rebbe, and his wife, the Frierdiker Rebbe's daughter, was also on the plane. The Rebbe's wife, her mother, and the nurse, and Rabbi Lieberman [?], and Rabbi Hodakov and Mrs. Hodakov, and Rabbi Mindel.

Mrs. Mindel left earlier because she was afraid to stay there because of the war, so she asked the Frierdiker Rebbe — she wanted to go to England; she comes from England. So the Frierdiker Rebbe said to her, "Okay, you can go, but your husband, Rabbi Mindel, I have to have him with me." He gave the reason: because they had to open up centers to the world — that's where they started to talk about the Tanya in English — and he said, "When we come to America, then you'll go pick up your wife in England."

So there were eleven people when he came to America. We all know he said, "America is a piece of ice, and we are here to break the ice of America." And we know what the Frierdiker Rebbe did, what he accomplished, what he set out to accomplish. There was then a problem with keeping Shabbos, and there was hardship, and the Frierdiker Rebbe broke the ice of America. Look at America today — this is credit to the Frierdiker Rebbe, when he came to America.

Now, besides — in addition to the well-known activities that the Frierdiker Rebbe did in America — there is an activity not well known that the Frierdiker Rebbe initiated, and that's a weekly Tanya class that was given to intellectuals and professionals in Manhattan, and that's what I want to talk to you about today — that class.

So the Frierdiker Rebbe arranged the class in a dentist's office every single Wednesday, and the Frierdiker Rebbe took a big interest in this class, and he sent Rabbi Mindel every single week to attend this class. He wanted — they wanted — to hear every week a report, a written report, exactly how many people came and how the class went, and what questions there were. And when Rabbi Mindel gave a report, sometimes the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote — I'll probably share this with you next week — he wrote with his own handwriting pages and pages of questions and answers that people asked in that class, and he spoke about it, and then they discussed it in that class.

Now, that brought about the writing that the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote about the class. So the Frierdiker Rebbe said, "I want to write a story that happened with me in the interrogation by the GPU, in 1921, and I feel that you should share this story with the group, and that will give a chayus to the group."

Now there were, I think, twenty people — twenty men and five women — and then after the first few times it grew more. This class — I don't know how much the Frierdiker Rebbe put into this particular adult education class — it's unbelievable, and I'll show you soon.

So Mr. Alexander Cowan — he was a lawyer — he gave the class to intellectuals with the participation of Rabbi Mindel. They used a textbook; the textbook was called "Bible Unauthorized." It's out of print — I have it here, "Bible Unauthorized," I have it right here. I think this book was used at the class — I'll tell you about it soon. And I think the Frierdiker Rebbe was happy that they used this as a text. The story that the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote — he said, when you have a class you should always, in the middle, tell a story.

Now, what I want today — first, before I read the letter that the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote to Rabbi Mindel, to discuss or read the story — or tell the story that he told to the group — he wrote an introduction. He wrote it in Hebrew, and I'll translate that into English. This introduction — I don't know why — the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote it to Rabbi Schanzin [?]. I don't know what he had to do with the group, but he wrote it to him.

The Frierdiker Rebbe wrote like this — this is a translation from the Hebrew:

"This book, 'Bible Unauthorized,' is mainly an English explanation of Sefer Bereishis, with a lengthy introduction where the author explains such concepts as Creation and Divine Providence. When my son-in-law, the Rebbe, Mendel, arrived in this country — that was in 1941 — I asked him to review the book and tell me his opinion, whether it would fulfill its hopeful potential. After several months my son-in-law Mendel informed me that the book is written in an intellectual style and must be studied properly due to its deep concepts. Without a doubt it will be of great worth to those who study it and will convince them to keep the practical commandments, for in many ways the author defeats the arguments of the heretics and proves the truth of the Torah.

"Hence I borrowed — imagine — the sum of $2,000, those days, $2,000, from one of my acquaintances, lending it to the author for the publication of this book. When it was published, I encouraged one of my acquaintances, Mr. Alexander Cowan, a businessman and an intellectual, together with some of his associates, likewise businessmen and college graduates, to begin a class in this book. Throughout the first year they would convene sporadically, and in the second year they organized a weekly class. As time went on, the membership grew slowly; a change began to be noticed among the members — the study had led them to avoid non-kosher food, and today there are, thank G-d, a few dozen members, English-speaking, who had no prior knowledge of Judaism, and are putting on tefillin and keeping Shabbos, and so on."

Then he writes: "'Bible Unauthorized' was authored by Mr. Aaron Levitt, under the pen name A.R. Harris [?]."

So this is what the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote. Now you can see how much the Frierdiker Rebbe put into this class.

Now I'll share with you the letter that the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote to Rabbi Mindel, and I'll show it to you on the screen — you can see it. I'll show you the typed letter; he wrote it in his own handwriting — I don't have that in front of me — but this letter, that the Frierdiker Rebbe signed, reading it to them — this letter will give them a chayus in the class.

So the Frierdiker Rebbe sat down, he wrote it, then it was typed, and then the Frierdiker Rebbe signed that typed paper. So here I'm going to read this story that he told for the class — this is an English translation, the way Rabbi Mindel translated it. I don't know if it's word for word — if you want to know word for word, you can always see on the screen the way the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote it — but I'm going to read it the way Rabbi Mindel wrote it:

"It was in the summer of 1921, in the month of Tammuz [July], when the Rebbe was invited to appear at the Cheka — the Extraordinary Committee, later to be known as the GPU, the equivalent of the Nazi Gestapo, and dreaded no less. The Rebbe was then in Rostov, and the invitation was the customary one. The Rebbe was still in mourning after his father — this was in the year of aveilus for the Rebbe [Rashab].

"Three Chekists entered the room, armed to the teeth with rifles, Caucasian knives, a belt of ammunition, not attempting to disguise their hatred. They went up to the Rebbe and told him he was requested to accompany them immediately to the Cheka. Two of the men were of the Yevsektsia — that's the Jewish section — and the third was a gentile.

"When the Rebbe told them he wished to conclude his prayers, the two Jews almost fell upon him, trying to tear off the Rebbe's tallis and tefillin, and were it not for the gentile companion, they would have forced him to accompany them before concluding his prayers. The gentile, however, prevailed upon them to let the Rebbe conclude his prayer.

"(Incidentally, the Rebbe recognized one of the Jews as a native of Chevel [?], having once come to him for help, and the Rebbe had secured a position for him with a tobacco firm and even lent him some money to start a business of his own — that was, of course, before the Revolution.)

"Now when the Rebbe concluded, saying the last Kaddish, he took off his tallis and tefillin and accompanied them to the dreaded Cheka. He had an armed guard on each side of him and one walking behind, like a very dangerous criminal. In those days one never knew whether one could come back alive from a visit to the Cheka.

"He was led into a large room where some fifteen men sat along a table on each side, with two men at its head. The Rebbe was placed at the end of the table, still surrounded by the armed guard. One of the two men sitting at the head of the table turned to the Rebbe, saying, 'We are members of the committee investigating religious activity under the auspices of the Party. We are engaged at present in investigating the Jewish faith. We had some questions cleared up by Rabbis Burman [?] and Goldberg [?], whom we had invited here. Now you have been invited to clear up some questions with regard to Kabbalah and Chassidus.' They spoke in Russian — that's what the Rebbe writes here.

"The Rebbe replied in Yiddish: 'I have already been invited twice before to the Cheka. When I was there, I already stated that I would not deviate from my principles, and the man — or devil — hasn't been created yet who could make me give up as much as one iota.'

"Before the Rebbe managed to conclude his few words, one of the Chekists present, sitting near the head of the table, picked up the gun lying in front of him — in addition to being armed with a gun, each one had a gun lying on the table before him, no doubt to intimidate — saying, 'This toy does away with many principles and opens the mouth of the dumb.'

"'You are absolutely mistaken,' said the Rebbe, 'for this toy impresses only those who do not believe — these cowards who have only one world and many gods, to whom each passion is a god, and they are afraid to lose this only world. But as to Jews, who have only one G-d but two worlds, this toy does not frighten and makes no impression whatsoever.'

"'We have not called you for the purpose of annoying you,' said the chairman, 'let's hear your principles — maybe we can get together on them.'

"So the Rebbe said, 'My principle is that I do not wish to hear nor to speak any other language but Yiddish, even among Christians, and especially among men who belong to the Jewish people, because a lot of these people — maybe most of them — are Jewish.'

"'How do you know that we are Jews?' said one of them.

"So the Rebbe answered, 'Maybe I'm mistaken, and not all those present here are Jews. My grandfather' — that means the Rebbe Maharash — 'could recognize a Jew at a glance, even in the street. Once when he was in Kiev, walking along Kreshchatik Street, he stopped a young man dressed in modern clothes, clearly anxious to disguise his Jewish origin, and asked him where a famous professor lived. The young man became incensed and said, "How do you know that I am a Jew?" My grandfather said, "The bris left an effect upon your nose." Now, I cannot recognize by that same criterion, but I still believe I am not mistaken.'

"They said: 'The first question is — you observe your faith in every detail, you keep your head covered, you wear tzitzis, and so forth. Now, all these things you do — do you do it from conviction, or because of habit and your faith?'

"'From absolute conviction,' said the Rebbe.

"'If so, convince us also, and bring us to the same spiritual level as yours,' they said.

"'I am prepared to oblige you in study, and surely you will give me an opportunity to fulfill your request. You will admit, however, that if a student of astronomy is stopped in the street by someone with a request to explain to him the system of the stars and planets, surely the student of astronomy would tell him: I cannot explain it to you here in the street right now, but if you really wish to learn, come up to the planetarium, and you will see with your own eyes, through the telescope, the movements of the stars and planets. Similarly,' said the Rebbe, 'I say to you: if you really want to learn and be convinced about our faith in G-d and His [existence — unclear], come with me to the house of G-d, put on tefillin, eat kosher, observe Shabbos — then your mind will be clarified, as well as your heart, and you will be able to understand it with ethical thought, and I will surely bring you, little by little, to the conviction of the truth of our Torah and our faith.'

"'But first explain to us intellectually, and then we will take it upon ourselves to observe the Jewish faith; but until then we cannot accept the religious matters as truth.'

"So the Rebbe said, 'You surely know definitely that food not merely satisfies the stomach and gives strength, but even — it happens — because it turns into blood and flesh. In medicine the process of digestion is clearly explained. But suppose someone said, "I shall refuse to eat until it will be explained to me how the food turns into blood and flesh" — it is necessary to believe, and to eat and drink first, and then go study medicine if you wish. And so it is also with religion.'"

Now, these words made a profound impression on the people, and this is the story that the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote down. They were inspired from this — this story gave them interest in this whole group, and they spoke about it for weeks and weeks. This story that the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote — we see here how much the Frierdiker Rebbe put into this group.

There's much more to speak about, but there's not time. Next week I will share with you the letter, and I'll show you the questions and answers from the Frierdiker Rebbe, and we'll discuss how this was discussed later on in the class. Now, from that class there became [members — unclear] and the children and the grandchildren — some of them I even know today.

Next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.