The Purchase of the Ohel For Yud Shevat

The Purchase of the Ohel For Yud Shevat — Episode 292

Welcome to our weekly Mivtza Shabbos program. We are now in the week of Yud Shevat. Yud Shevat is the tenth of Shevat, the yahrzeit of the Frierdiker Rebbe.

Now, by the way, the program from last week — I had a lot of comments, people called me about it. It was a beautiful, beautiful letter of Rabbi Nemov [?].

As a child we lived in Cleveland. My parents — every year when it came time, my father traveled to New York to the Rebbe, and I went with him. [unclear] from Detroit — he chartered a bus, and he had people coming, and then he stopped in Cleveland, and then we got into the bus, and we went — this was years ago — to the farbrengen. It was a special time, I'll never forget it. In those days, not like now, there was snow — always a foot of snow, very cold. There was a time we were standing by the Ohel, maybe twenty, thirty below zero, and we came [unclear] — I remember they came with boots, I was a child — and something that I'll never forget, those days. And then in the morning the Rebbe — and then we went to [unclear], and then there was a long farbrengen. Those days the farbrengen would go until two, three in the morning. It was a special farbrengen for Yud Shevat, I'll never forget it. It was unbelievable.

So once I remember coming, and I remember the Rebbe had to walk from his house to 770, and it was a foot of snow, so some bochurim walked ahead to shovel snow. So he walked from the Rebbe's house to 770, to make a path — to make a path so the Rebbe should be able to go through. I remember that.

So, it's a month.

So I want to share with you things that I wrote down here from my father-in-law, Rabbi Mindel — some things, and from my father, from the early years of the Rebbe — what they wrote.

Now, by the way, a book about the Frierdiker Rebbe came out from Rabbi Dovid [?], that was recently published, which contains — I think — fascinating information. I don't know about most of the book, but many, many pages I gave him from the Mindel archives that I shared with him for that book. But there's still more inyanim — so many things that were never written yet.

But before I share with you some things that Rabbi Mindel wrote, I just want to say it's already over 75 years since the histalkus, and many, many stories have been told — many of the mofsim [wonders] and inyanim [matters] of the Rebbe. Shevat is a month — the histalkus, the hiskapelus — also a month of three Rebbetzins. The Rebbe Maharash's wife passed away in Shevat; she was a special Rebbetzin. And I think — he writes here — that most of the stories the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote, he wrote a lot of them in his memoirs and other places, is what he heard from his grandmother. So her passing is also in Shevat; his mother's passing is also in Shevat; and the Frierdiker Rebbe's daughter — her passing is also in Shevat too. So it's a very, very [special month].

So I want to say first: the Rebbe became Rebbe after the Holocaust, in 1950. Many Yidden, after the war, had doubts in emunah — how could G-d do such a thing, what happened in the Holocaust. So, by Divine Providence, the Rebbe became Rebbe after the Holocaust, and his name means comfort. He comforted the whole Klal Yisroel. He brought back Yiddishkeit, emunah, not only to people who were not frum but even to people who were religious — people had doubts — and we needed the Rebbe.

Now, just like the Baal Shem Tov — there were [difficult] times, there was a decree, and then emunah — they fainted in emunah, they didn't believe. So the Baal Shem Tov came down, his name was Yisroel, and every Yid is called Yisroel — there's a connection to every Yid — and when a person faints, by calling his name you revive him. So the Baal Shem Tov, whose name was Yisroel, he revived Klal Yisroel, and this was the beginning — the same thing also with our Rebbe. But there is a difference between the Baal Shem Tov and our Rebbe.

The difference is communication. The Rebbe could reach the entire world — there's a telephone, there's a radio, there's internet — there are things that can reach the entire world. Whereas in the time of the Baal Shem Tov, he couldn't reach the entire world. But the idea is the same: he revived the world. The Rebbe comforted the Klal Yisroel, and the Baal Shem Tov revived — this was the beginning.

Now, as a mussar [illustration] — I remember when I was a bochur, I had to go to a doctor in Manhattan, a big doctor — he was a lung doctor, his name was Dr. Alexander. Remember him? So I went to see him, and his wife was a nurse there also. So we came in, and we told him that we're Chabad. So he said to us, he says, "Do you know that the young man, the new Rebbe" — the young man came in the '40s, when the Yidden, the refugees that came from the war, [needed to be seen], the Rebbe came to that office. I don't know how many times a week, but the Rebbe was there, and the Rebbe spoke to the people, and the Rebbe helped the people, and what the Rebbe [advised] — he doesn't know how he even knew medicine.

He told me then — this is how it became [known] — that in all the years it never happened once that the Rebbe did not come to 770, maybe even in the '40s, I don't know. But we know that from the Nesius, how many [years] — he never missed a day. It's unheard of.

Even when the Rebbe had the heart attack, which not too many people know — the Rebbe had a heart attack in 1964, he had a minor heart attack — even then he walked to 770.

Rabbi Mindel writes here that the Rebbe wore three crowns: he wore the crown of Chabad, he wore the crown of Klal Yisroel, and he wore the crown of the world — even goyim [recognized him]. And that's why the Rebbe came out with the mivtzoim — he was [a leader] of the world. And I remember the Six Day War — Israelis wanted to leave before the war, but they all wanted to know what the Rebbe said. The Rebbe said they should stay. They relied on him — everybody, the whole world. I remember — I think he got married right before, and he was here, he was supposed to go [back], there was a war, and he didn't know what to do. The Rebbe said, "Go, it'll be good." And before him, the Rebbe told him — people relied [on him], the whole world. So he was a Nasi of the world — he was a Nasi of Chabad and of the whole world.

Now, come to think of it, I don't know — as much as I know, a gadol usually writes letters in Hebrew. Besides the Rambam — the Rambam wrote also in another language — but besides the Rambam, I don't think anybody wrote letters in French, in Russian, in Spanish, in Yiddish, in English, different languages, thousands and thousands of letters. I myself here have from Rabbi Mindel — who knows how many letters, Russian letters, English letters, which Rebbe wrote in that language?

There was never a person who went to the Rebbe, spoke to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said that he doesn't know about this subject. When a doctor walked in to the Rebbe, he went and says, "How does he know medicine?" A lawyer walked in to the Rebbe. [unclear] — a politician walked in to the Rebbe.

I remember years ago Abba Eban [?] once said, about after the Six Day War, the Rebbe told him how they could have gone into different places. How did the Rebbe know? There was never such a person. And the last thing — the last thing is Moshiach. I mean, everybody believes in Moshiach, and everybody finishes with Moshiach. So what did the Rebbe accomplish? The Rebbe made Moshiach real — not that you finish a speech and say, "Oh, we should [hope for it]," but he made Moshiach real.

So, since we find ourselves on this [topic], I just want to mention to you, which I found here from Rabbi Mindel, about when the Ohel was built — when did it start? So he writes here that in [unclear year], Rabbi Leviton [?], Horav Meir Ashkenazi [?], Horav Simpson [?] or Jacobson [?], Horav Berel Rivkin [?], Horav Binyamin [?], Horav Kazanovsky, and Horav Tushkin [?] signed, and they were involved in building that.

And he writes like this — that they wrote: the time came to build an Ohel, to daven there, a holy, pure place, like [a place] where our tefillos are accepted there more, and it goes up [to Heaven] much faster. All people knew — they knew the fact that their tefillos are accepted [there].

Then Rabbi Mindel reported — this is from, I see here, [an announcement] to the newspapers and to the world — that the Chabad congregation of America and the world has appointed the son-in-law of the Frierdiker Rebbe as successor as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in the capacity of Nasi and leader of Chabad, continuing the chain of the Chabad dynasty dating back to the Alter Rebbe.

And there was a committee then — who was on the committee that should sign that the Rebbe should be [accepted]? Horav [Meir] Ashkenazi — he was the former chief rabbi of Shanghai. Horav Aryeh [?] Kazanovsky. There was a Rav in Maplewood, NJ, and [Rabbi] Zalman Gurary [?], the son-in-law of the Kapishnitzer Rebbe. These three people took care of the hiskashrus [?] declaration of devoted connection.

Now, he mentioned the Kapishnitzer Rebbe. I'm mentioning the Kapishnitzer Rebbe — I think it was the Kapishnitzer Rebbe, but I know the Rebbe said [the same] even about [unclear] — but I think it was the Kapishnitzer Rebbe that was once sitting with [another Rebbe], and a Yid said, "The Rebbe is Moshiach" — [referring to] the Frierdiker Rebbe. So the [other Rebbe] got up and said, "Who — how do you know, who told you, what makes you [say that]?" And he was very upset that he said that the Rebbe is Moshiach.

So the Kapishnitzer [Rebbe] got up and said to him, "Relax, sit down — are you Moshiach?" "Of course not." So he said, "So one thing we know — that you are not Moshiach." "That we all know, right?" "Right, I know." He says, "I'm not Moshiach either. What do you care if he's Moshiach? Why do you [care]?" That was the Kapishnitzer [Rebbe].

Now, I remember the Kapishnitzer Rebbe. I remember seeing him — I was at the Sternberg's [?], his wife is the granddaughter of the Kapishnitzer Rebbe. And I remember that the Rebbe afterward spoke very much about not drinking mashke — you're not allowed to drink [too much], I don't know what happened there, but [he spoke] very much [about it].

Now, this goes back — if you remember my program a few weeks ago, and everybody saw it — I read [a letter in which] the Rebbe had pain for the people who drink mashke, especially under forty, and the Rebbe [said] they should [speak] about people drinking mashke. So I still don't understand — I had telephone calls afterward from mothers, and they thanked me that I even mentioned it; nobody mentions it. People drink mashke today, and this — the Rebbe [wrote about it] many, many times — there's more here that the Rebbe writes about not drinking mashke. So I want to mention it again, coming from mentioning the Kapishnitzer Rebbe, because the Rebbe mentioned then about not drinking mashke, which is very important — besides that the doctors say that people have problems with their liver because of mashke. That's besides the point, but we have to listen to the Rebbe.

So, since there is not much time now, I want to leave it here, and, with Hashem's help, next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.