Livenyomin Omar | Episode 3: Rabbi Yosef Gerlitzky

Hello, everyone. We’re back with another podcast episode. This time I have the privilege of being a guest in the domain of the Rebbe’s shliach, Rabbi Yosef Shmuel Gerlitzky, the Rebbe’s head shliach in Tel Aviv for decades. We’re here in his domain, upstairs at the Geulas Yisroel synagogue, 16 Merkaz Ba’alei Melacha Street in Tel Aviv. I think a great many Chabad chassidim have known this address for decades, even if they’ve never had the chance to visit.

I myself, to my shame—and I do confess it—only got to visit this place this year, for the Tel Aviv shluchim’s gathering. I was amazed to see 78 shluchim gathering here in Tel Aviv under Rabbi Gerlitzky’s leadership. And now I have the privilege of being here in your office, Rabbi Gerlitzky. Shalom aleichem.

Guest: Aleichem shalom.

Interviewer: Seventy-eight shluchim in a huge city like Tel Aviv—that’s no small thing.

Guest: Moscow wasn’t built in a day. It’s one more shliach, and another shliach, and another. Now we also have a shliach in Jaffa—Eli Wild—and another shliach.

Interviewer: It just keeps expanding, with more and more shluchim, each of whom...

Guest: Has a synagogue too. Every synagogue has a rabbi. For example, his synagogue is packed on Shabbos—Yeshuv Ben... [unclear]. And Rabbi Neiditch also has a synagogue that’s packed to capacity.

Interviewer: Yes, if we start listing all of them and their synagogues now, we could...

Guest: Yes, absolutely. It’s really very impressive. Each one is worth an article of his own, an episode of his own, of course.

Interviewer: But I want to take this opportunity—I don’t think anyone has ever gone through it with you fully and systematically. We’ll get to both the past and the present. Let me just say one thing: I think most Chabad chassidim know this address, 16 Merkaz Ba’alei Melacha, mainly from the annual gathering held here during the Three Weeks on the laws of the Beis Hamikdash. I remember the regular official notice saying that the venue is air-conditioned and that the women’s section is secure.

Guest: It has to be... Azriel Cohen [unclear] prepared it.

Interviewer: Azriel Cohen—for those who don’t know, he’s the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv today. What was his role here?

Guest: He was here at the gathering, with us, for the laws of the Beis Hamikdash. Yes, yes. At the time he headed the rabbinical courts, and today he’s the chief rabbi.

Interviewer: We’ll come back to the present, and to everything connected with this place—including the many baalei teshuvah. Of you, one can truly say, “He turned many away from sin.” But I’d like to go back a little, perhaps starting with your first yechidus. You were a child accompanying your father, a chossid from Montreal, who made the trip all the way from Montreal to the Rebbe. You went into the Rebbe’s room, and something unusual happened. What exactly happened there?

Guest: The Rebbe turned to me and said to my father, “Why didn’t you write down his name?” Even though all the names were written before him.

Interviewer: All the names were there—sisters and brothers, without the evil eye; may they all live long and good years. There was your brother Avrum, and Menachem, who was little.

Guest: We all went in together.

Interviewer: And the Rebbe noticed that your name wasn’t listed.

Guest: The Rebbe turned to my father and said, “So-and-so, son of so-and-so... Why did you forget to write down his name?”

Interviewer: How did your father react?

Guest: My father’s hands began to shake. He couldn’t understand how it could have happened. He was very moved.

Interviewer: And then, in the end, the Rebbe asked what your name was?

Guest: Then my father said—that’s exactly how it happened—that I said my name.

Interviewer: You did—your father was overcome with emotion.

Guest: My father was very emotional. He couldn’t understand how he’d forgotten to write my name. There were eight children in yechidus together, and the Rebbe turned to him and said, “So-and-so, son of so-and-so... Why did you forget to write down his name?”

Interviewer: So you got up and said...

Guest: I said that my name was Yehoshua, and the Rebbe took...

Interviewer: Yosef Shmuel Yehoshua?

Guest: Yosef Shmuel Yehoshua. The Rebbe wrote it at the top, in very small writing with an orange pencil, where there was a little space. So the Rebbe wrote the name: Yosef Shmuel Yehoshua.

Interviewer: And then, toward the end of the yechidus, the Rebbe asked you...

Guest: Whether I knew how to say Shema. So I covered my eyes and said, “Shema Yisroel...” all the way through.

Interviewer: And how did the Rebbe react?

Guest: He smiled, I think.

Interviewer: He smiled. Yes, yes, yes. He always had a special way with children.

Guest: Yes.

Interviewer: That’s really something special, and it happened when you were a child. There were more yechiduyos afterward. By the time you were a teenager, you were already studying—around your bar mitzvah, really. Which yeshivah did you attend?

Guest: Not in Baltimore... I studied in Newark, and afterward I came to 770.

Interviewer: When you were just past bar mitzvah?

Guest: Yes, because I received an answer from the Rebbe: “He should study where his heart desires.”

Interviewer: Because you were deciding where to study?

Guest: Because I was undecided. Usually the Rebbe gave brief answers.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: But the Rebbe answered me, “He should study where his heart desires.” That’s how the Rebbe answered me.

Interviewer: So where did your heart really want to be?

Guest: At 770. So I moved there at a young age. I did it gladly.

Interviewer: And then the stories of your assignments begin, sending you out to far-flung countries. This was already in your early twenties.

Guest: In 5725 I traveled to Japan, to Tokyo, to Manila in the Philippines, to a series of countries, until I reached Iran.

Interviewer: I think I once heard a story from before Iran. Someone told me you arrived in a city in Japan, or somewhere else, and looked for Jews there but couldn’t find any. What exactly happened?

Guest: We arrived in a city called Hamamatsu [unclear].

Interviewer: “We”—you and whom?

Guest: Rabbi Sholom Ritchik and I.

Interviewer: And you looked there...

Guest: We searched. We spent all Shabbos walking around looking for Jews, but we didn’t find even one Jew. All we saw was a very large family sitting and eating rice, tossing the rice around with their chopsticks.

Interviewer: That was one of the experiences you had while searching there. Then you reached Persia—Iran. This was under the rule of the Shah of Persia.

Guest: Yes, there was...

Interviewer: So it wasn’t a problem for a Jew to land there?

Guest: At least not for an American Jew. There were even Israelis speaking there.

Interviewer: And was there a school there where the Israelis studied?

Guest: There was. When we came in, everyone shouted, “Kuni Lemel!” Suddenly they saw corduroy and suits and all that.

Interviewer: “Kuni Lemel”—that expression.

Guest: Yes, yes, yes. “Kuni Lemel.” That was the nickname.

Interviewer: That’s the first time I’ve heard that term. Since then, especially in Tel Aviv, you’ve surely encountered that sort of thing again. And there you met Jews who were relaxed and self-assured, meaning...

Guest: Yes, it was a peaceful time.

Interviewer: And I think I once read somewhere that you stood on a table there and spoke.

Guest: Yes. I didn’t want to speak into a microphone, so I said I had a loud voice. I stood on the table and spoke loudly, in English, which everyone understood. They told me, “Use the microphone; it has a hechsher.” I said, “I’m glad to hear it, but I don’t want to.” [Laughter] I said, “I’ll speak loudly. I’ll stand on the table.” Rabbi Shoft’s son translated—he was the son of the rabbi at the time, Rabbi Shoft—and his son translated what we said.

Interviewer: He was the community rabbi—so, in a sense, a leading rabbi of the country, perhaps even...

Guest: Yes.

Interviewer: But your saying that you stood on a table reminds me of something entirely different, in an entirely different setting: the days of the great struggle over “Who is a Jew,” the integrity of the Jewish people. Back then, you were also a young man—I think it was 5728; you’ll correct me on exactly when. But for the younger people among us who may not know who was on the front lines, or how much energy Chabad put into trying to change the minds of the Mizrachi Workers’ Party, the National Religious Party, as they were called then: enormous efforts went into persuading them to change course and support an amendment to the “Who is a Jew” law. In those days, you received a kind of secret assignment from Rabbi Chadakov. You were a yeshivah student then, right? What exactly happened?

Guest: It was quite simple... I remember because there was a lot of snow.

Interviewer: Snow in New York, in the middle of a New York winter—winter storms. It was difficult.

Guest: Rabbi Duchman—so, you and Rabbi Duchman.

Interviewer: Rabbi Duchman, who later became the director of Colel Chabad—you were both yeshivah students, roughly the same age, then?

Guest: Yes, yes, more or less. We studied together in 770.

Interviewer: Right. So Rabbi Chadakov calls both of you and tells you: On Friday...

Guest: On Friday, to go to Queens, to Lido Beach.

Interviewer: And there you would try to make...

Guest: We would try to make a move, stir things up a little.

Interviewer: Because what was going on there? A gathering of the leadership of...

Guest: Their dinner, something like that—their weekend gathering.

Interviewer: Some kind of dinner. So you went. When he called you, did he tell you what to do?

Guest: He didn’t. It was an unofficial shlichus.

Interviewer: Unofficial, yes, yes.

Guest: And I got up and shouted... People laughed, they trembled...

Interviewer: Wait, you got up and shouted—who was speaking there at the time?

Guest: Yitzchak Rafael was speaking, who was...

Interviewer: The Minister of Religious Affairs?

Guest: I think he was the Interior Minister.

Interviewer: Right, right.

Guest: I said: “For the sake of your seats, are you prepared to give up on ‘Who is a Jew,’ on the integrity of the Land of Israel, and on everything we’re fighting for? Are you prepared to give it all up?”

Interviewer: Just to keep your seats.

Guest: For your seats, yes.

Interviewer: And how did the audience react?

Guest: They wanted to lynch me. People immediately got up, they got up... And one person stood up and said, “Anyone who touches him, I’ll kill him.” He said it to them in English: “I will kill him.” That’s what he said—he was there with me.

Interviewer: Right.

Guest: He saw what was happening, that they wanted to lynch me, because everyone had gotten up and started shouting. The next day, Yitzchak Rafael came to speak to the young people again, and as soon as he saw us, he turned around and left.

Interviewer: He was stunned. He wanted to get out of there; he didn’t want to be in that situation again. Afterward, did you go back and tell Rabbi Chadakov all of this?

Guest: Yes, all of it, to Rabbi Chadakov.

Interviewer: And he needed to know—it was written up, it had to be heard—that the protest...

Guest: Had accomplished something, yes, yes.

Interviewer: So this was during your yeshiva years, really—various shlichus assignments. There were the mitzvah tanks too, there were...

Guest: That was when the mitzvah tanks began.

Interviewer: There was a time you traveled to France with Rabbi Krinsky.

Guest: He was already married then; he already had children.

Interviewer: Right.

Guest: And I traveled with him to France in order to...

Interviewer: To France for what?

Guest: To approach a major donor.

Interviewer: And as you passed a certain spot, you asked him why he had turned left onto Linden Boulevard...

Guest: And he said, “I get chills.”

Interviewer: “When you remind me of that.”

Guest: Because I remember opening the window, and the Rebbe encouraging you as you sang the niggun we had then—it was the niggun for the Rebbe’s kapitel, from when we came back with the mitzvah tanks.

Interviewer: So the mitzvah tanks... Linden Boulevard—for viewers who may not know, that was the route the tanks would take. You could drive through there, within the neighborhood...

Guest: Yes, but we were on Atlantic, and we opened the window, and the Rebbe began encouraging the niggun we were singing from the tank. It was playing over the tank’s loudspeaker—that niggun, as I said.

Interviewer: Remarkable... Many years later, when you were together, you remembered that moment. Eventually, you came as shluchim...

Interviewer: You made aliyah to the Holy Land... Your group arrived on Purim Katan?

Guest: Yes, Purim Katan—the third group, actually.

Interviewer: Right.

Interviewer: You arrived in Tzfas, and at first you even lived in Tzfas?

Guest: We lived in Kiryat Chabad.

Interviewer: Kiryat Chabad in Tzfas. For how many years? Until 5741?

Guest: I was in Tzfas until 5741, and then...

Interviewer: And then you came to Tel Aviv. Who chose Tel Aviv?

Guest: What happened was that Rabbi [unclear] chose it for us. He came to my home in Tzfas and said to Rabbi Shmuel Gourary...

Guest: He called Rabbi Shmuel Gourary, who lived in Tel Aviv, and told him, “[unclear] I’ll be at your place in fifteen minutes.”

Interviewer: “I’ll be at your place in fifteen minutes”—with the new shliach, so to speak?

Guest: Yes.

Interviewer: But you were still in Tzfas?

Guest: In Tzfas. I said to him, “How can we get there from Tzfas in fifteen minutes?” It was a drive of several hours.

Interviewer: Yes, at least.

Guest: Even longer. It’s still several hours today, but back then it took even longer. Yes, yes, so...

Interviewer: So what did he say to you?

Guest: He told me, “I knew you’d tell me not to come right now.” That was his answer. I was looking for an excuse [unclear] not to have him come right then.

Interviewer: So he said fifteen minutes. And that’s how you came to Tel Aviv, leaving the sheltered environment of Tzfas, with its Chassidic neighborhood and a growing Chabad community, and being thrown into the heart of bourgeois Tel Aviv. People still call it “the State of Tel Aviv,” but I think back then the city was even more inclined to call itself “the State of Tel Aviv”—“our song,” right?

Guest: Yes, but some people also call it “the State of Tel Aviv” because it’s a symbol of a state within a state.

Interviewer: The mayor then was Chich, Shlomo Lahat. Younger people watching us today might think Ron Huldai has been mayor since the city was founded. But for many years Shlomo Lahat was inseparable from the city. His nickname was Chich, and to put it mildly, he didn’t like religious Jews. At your first meeting with him, what did he actually tell you?

Guest: He told me, “When I grow hair, there’ll be a Chabad House in Tel Aviv.” Years later, I visited him when he was hospitalized. He was very weak; he couldn’t even hold a book. He was terribly weak.

Interviewer: When you visited him, did you remind him of that line?

Guest: I said to him, “Apparently you’ve grown a lot of hair—there are lots of Chabad Houses now,” not just one. And it’s true.

Interviewer: It wasn’t simple. Those who follow these things occasionally see photos of you with Chich, later with Roni Milo, and later with Ron Huldai—people whom, today, you really couldn’t place in the same camp as Chabad, Yiddishkeit, religious life, and Torah.

Guest: I managed to get through all that. When I go in for Ron Huldai’s birthday, he sometimes puts on tefillin. I manage to put tefillin on with him, because I bought him a specially made pair of tefillin. Each of them is inscribed with the Rebbe’s birthday, 11 Nissan.

Guest: [unclear] People from different walks of life also want to sign it. In fact, right here by the entrance, there’s the certificate with his actual signature on it.

Interviewer: Yes, yes.

Interviewer: How does something like that happen? Is it the Rebbe’s power?

Guest: The power of shlichus, of Chabad.

Interviewer: Still, there’s no doubt you have a special charm that enables you to do this. I know that over the years you’ve had various shlichus assignments involving different figures in Tel Aviv. Maybe we should go in order. People don’t know—people hear that Tel Aviv is a Chabad chossid, but they think of “Tel Aviv–Yafo” as something very, very secular. First of all, Tel Aviv was a city full of scholars and writers. There were Rebbes and Chassidic courts there, and you had direct relationships with them too.

Interviewer: Who was here?

Guest: The Sadigura Rebbe—I still remember that...

Interviewer: The Sadigura Rebbe?

Guest: Rabbi Akiva Horowitz [unclear] signed—he personally signed the rabbis’ ruling on pikuach nefesh, that “when lives are at risk, one must not give in” [unclear].

Interviewer: Yes, we have that here, we certainly do.

Guest: But it wasn’t only the Sadigura Rebbe. There were Rebbes and great Torah scholars before him too [unclear]. There was one on Rothschild Street who would provide hospitality there. And the Strykov Rebbe—I went in to see him, and he said to me, “Are you the Rebbe’s son? Do you wear the Chassidim’s hat?” That’s what he said to me.

Interviewer: He said that?

Guest: But there was also—I remember a story I once heard about the kabbalist Rabbi Segal, Rabbi Zerachya—that was part of his full name. He had five names: Yehuda Leib Zerachya... and later they added another two names. Yes, they added two more. He was a neighborhood rabbi in Tel Aviv.

Interviewer: He was a rabbi who...

Guest: Who was a kabbalist, a Jewish kabbalist.

Interviewer: Yes, the kabbalist.

Interviewer: And what happened with him—between you and the Rebbe through him? There was something unusual, wasn’t there?

Guest: He became ill; apparently he wasn’t feeling well. He was hospitalized at Ichilov. I came to visit him, and the Rabbi...

Interviewer: And you wrote to the Rebbe, in fact, that he...

Guest: I wrote to the Rebbe that this man needed healing, a complete recovery, and that it should bring him closer. The Rebbe answered: “Have the tefillin and mezuzos checked.” He was surprised, because he had ordered the mezuzos from a chossid who was truly G-d-fearing, someone knowledgeable and trusted. And as for the tefillin, he said, “I’ve just bought new tefillin.”

Interviewer: Brand-new ones, even. And he wasn’t a man who...

Guest: Yes, he was a respected Jew and all that. Nevertheless, the tefillin and mezuzos were checked.

Interviewer: And what did they find?

Guest: One [unclear] was missing from the tefillin shel rosh. He had a heart condition; he’d had a cardiac episode. In other words, one was missing from the tefillin shel rosh. After he had the tefillin checked—he gave them to that sofer to check—he learned that one compartment was missing. And he’d had a cardiac episode. Yes, yes.

Interviewer: Now, years later, after his passing, when you published this story, some people didn’t like it—his students, let’s say, and others. They came to you with serious complaints. They actually said you were desecrating his name.

Guest: Yes, yes.

Interviewer: And then I heard someone recount—and your son [unclear] told me this—that you wrote to the Rebbe. This was already after he had passed away. Then, by Divine Providence, you found among your papers, in your archives, Rabbi Segal’s own diary, where...

Guest: Where he himself writes that one was missing from the tefillin shel rosh, even though he had bought new tefillin. He writes explicitly that his tefillin were invalid, even though he had ordered new tefillin from a G-d-fearing chossid. He even tells me the man’s name.

Interviewer: The sofer’s name?

Guest: Yes. I don’t want to publish his name here, but once that came out, things quieted down. They stopped complaining.

Interviewer: Peace and quiet from that quarter, too.

Guest: Yes.

Interviewer: Now, I’ve already said that one could truly call you a “Rebbe who brings people back”—and not only in the past, because it’s still happening to this very day. That includes some very, very well-known names in Chabad and in the Jewish world generally, people whose closeness to Yiddishkeit and whose observance of Torah and mitzvos, down to the details, are thanks to you, your work, and your whole family. We’ll come back to that shortly. But there’s a very special story about a baal teshuvah, someone who had grown quite close before he had fully returned to observance. He was married to a non-Jewish woman from Holland. What exactly happened? He very much wanted to draw closer, but he had left his non-Jewish partner behind in Holland, correct?

Guest: Yes, and she was pregnant. He was told she was pregnant.

Interviewer: And I told the Rebbe the story, and then he said, “With the Rebbe, it’s all simple.”

Guest: Simple—but wait, let’s first tell the story for those who don’t know it. She was pregnant, and I understand they told you—or rather, they made him understand that...

Interviewer: That there was no chance, no chance. An abortion was out of the question for them, and so was his leaving her.

Guest: He sat with me and told me, “If you took off one of my fingers—one finger—it would be easier than my separation from her.”

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: Taking off a finger would have been easier.

Interviewer: It was hard. No, I understand that they made it clear to him, simply made it clear, that as far as they were concerned it was impossible. That if he, in other words...

Guest: The parents said, “You mustn’t leave her, because she’s pregnant with your child.” And it was clear that the child she was carrying was his. It was clear.

Interviewer: Yes, there was no doubt at all. They made him understand what he was up against—that he was literally putting his life at risk. And then you went and told him, “Write to the Rebbe.”

Guest: Yes. This was during the Gulf War.

Interviewer: So it was right in the middle of the Gulf War.

Guest: During the Gulf War, he came to me, and I gave him paper to write down everything he had been through.

Interviewer: And you sent it to the Rebbe.

Guest: I sent it to the Rebbe, and there was no answer for many, many weeks. I kept asking the secretary, “What’s happening? What’s happening?” There was no answer until Purim night. The war was still going on.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: On Purim night, before the war ended—the next day it ended, and they took down all the plastic sheeting from the sealed rooms, all of that—he received an answer. It was Purim, and the Rebbe wrote: “He should follow the path of the Ramtz, as mentioned in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, concerning the path of the Ramtz, as mentioned in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, particularly since he is a kohen.”

Interviewer: He was a kohen? A kohen.

Guest: Yes, yes, yes, a kohen.

Interviewer: I really am learning from you [unclear]. In the video there’s someone...

Guest: And he receives this answer, and the Rebbe leaves no room for doubt about exactly what he needs to do. Then what happens there in Holland?

Interviewer: In Holland.

Guest: Then, as I understood it, it suddenly turned out that...

Interviewer: Pregnant.

Guest: No, but afterward, following that answer, it turned out that she had miscarried. She miscarried. Then they stopped pressuring him and left him alone. Yes, yes, yes.

Interviewer: And there was more to the story, because then you called the Rebbe’s secretary—who was it, Rabbi Binyomin Klein? You called him and told him...

Guest: Ah, it was Simpson, Rabbi Leibel Simpson. And you told him—you told him that you’d added this to the story of “Pidyon.”

Interviewer: Yes, I said... Let’s explain for those who don’t know: the Rebbe, n”e, has an entire kuntres, “Padah Beshalom,” devoted to bringing back a young man who had strayed from the path. So you said to the Rebbe’s secretary...

Guest: “That belongs to [unclear].”

Interviewer: You said to the secretary then, “That took an entire kuntres”—and here it was simple, just simple: “He should follow the path of the Ramtz, as mentioned in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, particularly since he is a kohen.” Yes.

Guest: And it accomplished what was needed. Yes.

Interviewer: The secretary told you later that, because of this, he went in to the Rebbe and told him that with the Rebbe it was “simple”—and the Rebbe smiled broadly. That’s what he told me: the Rebbe smiled broadly at him, at Rabbi Simpson. Wow.

Guest: I came from [unclear].

Interviewer: Yes. It’s interesting that you had a connection with him. By the way, that’s a fascinating subject in its own right. People may have known Simpson through the letters that bore his signature, but they didn’t have a direct connection with him. You received something like twenty letters from him that the Rebbe had given him...

Guest: For him to type up.

Interviewer: To type up. And I have them here in a drawer—a bundle of letters that came back through the mail. I still have some of them. One of them I gave him a long time ago; it concerned tefillin. His son was here and received the letter, and he said, “Now I’m going to start doing mivtza tefillin.”

Guest: Wow.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: So how did you really find a way into Simpson’s heart? He struck me as someone who wasn’t...

Interviewer: [unclear], yes, bringing things to you, yes. But even before that—how did you establish a direct connection with him? Somehow you managed it. I’ll tell you why I’m asking: it leads me to something else I’m curious about. We spoke about your holy shlichus and your arrival here in Israel. Before long, you were chosen to serve on the board of the umbrella organization of Chabad institutions. And that, too, was something—there were many shluchim, all beloved, all worthy, all holy, but you managed to...

Guest: And they all deserve their due respect, their due respect. Still, you managed to connect with and win the affection of the Rebbe’s representative in Israel, Rabbi [unclear], and you were in very close contact with him. He assigned you various tasks in that connection. Perhaps I’ll mention something related to this. I’ll tell you: I have a letter from the secretariat in which I’m also described as a “representative”...

Interviewer: You’re also a “representative”?

Guest: Yes, a “representative” of the Rebbe. That’s what Nissan Mindel writes: “The Rebbe’s representative in Tel Aviv–Yafo.” That’s what the letter says.

Interviewer: Yes. For the younger generation following these things, the word “by force” is really reserved, if anything, for a very select few. You have a letter like that from the Rebbe. I’m jumping from one story to another because it’s interesting, but this is still within the framework of the umbrella organization. I remember you once told me—I had the privilege of interviewing Rabbi Landau several times, but the last interview Rabbi Moshe Landau gave in his lifetime was with me, for the Torah supplement of Hamodia ahead of Gimmel Tammuz. A few days later I met you near the Ohel. You had already seen the interview and spoke with me, and then you told me an amazing story: that the Rebbe tasked you, together with several others in the umbrella organization, including Reb Yossel Bloe, with the campaign to appoint Rabbi Landau, so that Rabbi Landau would succeed his father, Reb Yankele Landau. You would report to the Rebbe every single day on what was happening. One day you didn’t report, and a note came out from the Rebbe with a question—not a reply...

Guest: “As for this man Moshe, we do not know what...” Perhaps...

Interviewer: “As for this man Moshe, we do not know what...” Yes.

Guest: What was happening, as it were. The Rebbe wanted to know and take an interest in every detail. What actually happened? In fact, as we’re speaking, I’m remembering the particular affection Rabbi Landau showed you all those years. Over the years, Tel Aviv hosted many, many Chabad gatherings. Even the national convention was held right here, on Ohel Shem Street, close by. We passed it just now on our way here, in the Tel Aviv traffic. I saw that legendary hall and remembered my childhood, when we would travel here every year for the national convention. And later, too, at the Rambam siyumim—more than once, whether at Yad Eliyahu, the Cinerama, or Heichal HaTarbut—I remember Rabbi Landau. The tradition was always that he concluded the cycle, and no matter when or what the occasion was, when he approached the lectern to speak, he would say, “We begin by honoring our host, with the permission of the shliach down here, Rabbi Gerlitzky.” You had a special connection.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: I’ll tell you: when Rabbi Ginsburg’s son passed away in a traffic accident...

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: He was also Ginsburg from Ramat Aviv, yes.

Interviewer: Ramat Aviv, yes, in a traffic accident.

Guest: A traffic accident, on a bicycle, something like that. So I brought Rabbi Landau to speak to the children in the cheder, to encourage them. Rabbi Landau.

Interviewer: And he found a beautiful way of speaking to children, and taught children Torah too. Very interesting.

Guest: There were others. We spoke a little about rabbis and scholars. There is, for example, to this day, Rabbi Mottel Auerbach, a great scholar and the rabbi of a large community, with whom I’m in touch. He is the son of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.

Interviewer: He comes here to the farbrengen on his own. He was here this year too, right?

Guest: He keeps in touch.

Interviewer: Yes, he keeps in touch. You go to a gathering he holds for the yahrzeit of Rabbi Zalman Gurary’s uncle, or something like that.

Guest: The Kopishnitzer. He also comes from the Kopishnitz family, yes.

Interviewer: Also a branch of Ruzhin, yes.

Guest: So when you come there, the audience presumably raises an eyebrow. Not the audience itself—he invites me to speak, to say a few words.

Interviewer: That’s not something to take for granted.

Guest: I want to tell you, when I went to interview him to hear about Rabbi Zalman Gurary, who was actually his uncle, and so on—because his mother was...

Interviewer: His mother was [unclear]?

Guest: His mother was his mother-in-law.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: His mother-in-law was... In other words, she was the daughter of the Kopishnitzer Rebbe. So I went to interview him here, at his home or his beis midrash. I think it was at his home, and one of the young married men was there. He asked, “What is this man doing here?” So he told him, “[unclear], he’s actually a Chabad chossid.” The fellow said spontaneously—and I said, “Oh, let’s go back in time”; that’s how he put it. But he does keep in touch with you. He was here this year too, for Yud-Tes Kislev. Even this year, when he was weak, already getting weaker, and wasn’t really... he still felt a need to come.

Interviewer: To come, yes, yes.

Guest: Very much, very much.

Interviewer: We spoke about immigrants, and a little about mayors. I remember an amazing story you told me years ago. Let me give the younger people who may not know a bit of background: there was Shabtai Kalmanovitch. Shabtai Kalmanovitch was a very well-known figure in Tel Aviv—not just in Tel Aviv, but throughout Israel.

Guest: Yes, he was an immigrant from the Soviet Union, but he rose very, very high. I think he had an official position in the municipality; perhaps he was a deputy mayor. At any rate, he was connected to the highest levels of the Israeli government.

Interviewer: And naturally, as someone who regularly visited the homes of prominent people here in Tel Aviv, you visited him too. Once you brought Reb Mendel to him—Reb Mendel Futerfas.

Guest: Reb Mendel [clears throat] told me... Reb Mendel told you? What did he tell you?

Interviewer: He told me, “Why, he’s a spy.”

Guest: He told you, “You should know, he’s a spy. He’s a spy.”

Interviewer: At the time, that was a complete mystery. Nobody could imagine that Shabtai...

Guest: I asked him, “Why do you say that? Do you think everyone from Russia is a spy?” He said, “With him, specifically...” Reb Mendel—he gave you exactly Reb Mendel’s look. That’s how he said it: “A spy, absolutely.” Yes, only a spy could give that same look.

Interviewer: And later, for anyone who doesn’t know, he spent quite a few years in prison here, until he was expelled from the country altogether. He was caught as a spy.

Guest: That was Reb Mendel’s insight. He saw it.

Interviewer: Reb Mendel could see far ahead. Really astonishing.

Guest: He immediately said to me, “What a spy.” I said, “Why? Is everyone from Russia a spy?” He said—he gave exactly the look you described, Reb Mendel gave exactly that same look. That was how Reb Mendel concluded he was probably a spy.

Interviewer: In the end, he was caught as a major spy, a spy for the Soviet Union. People need to understand: this may have been before—certainly long before—the fall of the Iron Curtain. Russia was completely hostile to Israel, and the CIA, working together with Israel, discovered that he was a spy.

Guest: A spy, yes.

Interviewer: A spy. A lot of people were caught who suddenly disappeared from America, who had come to [unclear], and then suddenly vanished. They immediately suspected him, because they knew he was...

Guest: And in the end they murdered him.

Interviewer: He had a million dollars in cash, a million dollars, and someone shot him in his car. He was driving and they shot him. In other words, someone settled accounts with him once and for all.

Guest: So it was a completely different picture from what people saw here. I don’t know—you’ll correct me—whether he’s still alive or not, but Nahum Admoni, the head of the Mossad...

Interviewer: Ah, we’re talking about a time when no one knew the identity of the head of the Mossad. Even the newspapers didn’t print his name; at most they might have printed an “N” or an “A.” And you receive an instruction from the Rebbe, through the Rebbe’s secretariat, to bring him mishloach manos. You yourself didn’t even know he was the head of the Mossad.

Guest: I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

Interviewer: But you received an instruction, so you go and buy mishloach manos and bring it to him.

Guest: I bring it to his home.

Interviewer: You bring mishloach manos to his home. He lived in Tel Aviv too.

Guest: And not just mishloach manos, Binyamin. You mentioned mishloach manos and matzos—mishloach manos and matzos for Pesach. I’m in touch with him to this day.

Interviewer: You’re in touch with Nahum Admoni.

Guest: And he calls me and asks, “How was the Kinus Hashluchim?” He asks me how it was and so on. But back then, in those days, it was a discreet connection. Someone would simply call you once or twice a year, before Pesach and before Purim, to remind you to send matzos and mishloach manos and bring them to his home.

Interviewer: To the Admoni home.

Guest: Yes.

Interviewer: At the same time, of course, there were public figures—the Shamir family, father and son. Yair Shamir, I think, has appeared here at least a few times, including at the gathering on the laws of the Beis Hamikdash. You always bring a public figure who speaks about the integrity of the Land of Israel, as well as a rabbinic figure, like Rabbi She’ar-Yashuv Cohen, whom we mentioned. With Yitzhak Shamir himself, as a longtime resident of the city, you had a connection; you would visit him.

Guest: I would, I would visit him. There’s a picture here in the book of him putting on tefillin.

Interviewer: Yes, you put tefillin on with him.

Guest: I put tefillin on with him.

Interviewer: And we should mention that this was together with Caspi Shemtov.

Guest: Caspi Shemtov, together, yes.

Interviewer: Shamir—he gladly agreed to the request, yes, even though...

Guest: Yes, because he showed himself to be a man of faith.

Interviewer: A man of faith—that’s what you called him in the book, “A Man of Faith.”

Guest: He really did believe. I mean, he was the same inside and out, you could say. I remember people saying for years that some people lie, but he said, “For the sake of the Land of Israel, I don’t lie,” as if to say [laughter].

Interviewer: Right, I remember him saying that. He had an expression like that, that for the sake of the Land of Israel we...

Guest: We have a letter saying that pikuach nefesh overrides everything, everything.

Interviewer: Even politics. I’m not getting into the politics of it, but you’re [clears throat] 100% right that we must not give up a single inch of the Land of Israel.

Guest: The truth is, he was an exemplary case of that, because he really didn’t give back even one grain of earth. There was no one like him.

Interviewer: Not before him and not after him. We’ve spoken several times about pikuach nefesh, and we should pause to shine a light on it. There was an umbrella organization—we mentioned it—that was the overarching body for the institutions here in Israel. At a certain point, when the organization was dissolved, you felt the need, as a senior member, to write to the Rebbe that you were leaving the organization. The Rebbe then wrote you something extraordinary.

Guest: I came across it and wrote it down for myself: “Yasher koach for withdrawing from the umbrella organization, but not, G-d forbid, for withdrawing from action concerning the pikuach nefesh of millions of Jews, may they live.”

Interviewer: It’s as though the Rebbe took you out of one shlichus but immediately gave you another. And following that response, you established this organization, the Pikuach Nefesh organization, because this was no longer connected just to the Chabad House in Tel Aviv; it was something nationwide.

Guest: And since then you’ve become a headache for Israeli politicians, on the right and the left. Because even if someone strays a little on the issue of the integrity of the Land, you don’t let it go. You send letters; you get rabbis to sign. And that’s what you mentioned about Shamir and the Rebbes, and all of that.

Interviewer: That might be understandable if you were a shliach in Judea and Samaria, or even a shliach in Jerusalem. But you’re based in Tel Aviv, in Tel Aviv’s Sheinkin neighborhood. Have you never encountered people who told you, “I really like what you do, but this whole pikuach nefesh issue—that’s where I draw the line”?

Guest: There are people like that. There are.

Interviewer: Are there people who actually cut ties with you because of it?

Guest: Ah... There was someone I used to study with regularly at Nachalat Binyamin, every Thursday evening.

Interviewer: Nachalat Binyamin—we should tell people—is a longstanding Chabad shul.

Guest: An old one, yes, at 21 Nachalat Binyamin.

Interviewer: Yes, yes. You used to study Chassidus with him there every week.

Guest: Chassidus. We would study together, yes. And he cut off contact with me completely because he couldn’t tolerate the firm stand on this issue.

Interviewer: Yes, on pikuach nefesh.

Guest: But you have a directive from the Rebbe, and you...

Interviewer: You did it. I need to... Do you have the note here?

Guest: Yes, yes. “Yasher koach for withdrawing from the umbrella organization, but not, G-d forbid, withdrawing from the pikuach nefesh of millions...”

Interviewer: You knew that. To be precise: “of millions of Jews in the near future.”

Guest: Millions of Jews. Yes, I still have the note.

Interviewer: And as soon as you received it, you concluded that you needed to work on this issue explicitly.

Interviewer: Tel Aviv also has, as they say, “the shelter of wisdom and the shelter of wealth”—there are Jews of means here too. Were you in touch with them? Did you have connections with the Shapira family, on Shtreiker Street [unclear], number 30?

Guest: He was considered the CEO of... the CEO of the country [unclear].

Interviewer: Really? You heard that?

Guest: Yes, I heard that. Though he had a son who was... he has a son, a Chabad chossid [unclear]. He has a son, Elimelech Shapira.

Interviewer: What was his first name?

Guest: [unclear] from Brazil, yes. So Rabbi Menachem Mendel [unclear] would give a class for chassidim. That’s how it was—Rabbi Menachem Mendel giving a class for chassidim.

Interviewer: Did you study with him? Set up a regular class with him?

Guest: Why? A chossid is very... Chassidus. We did. We used to study inside the Sadigura shul. We studied Chassidus there once a week, yes.

Interviewer: Very interesting. We’re jumping from one subject to another, but there are the impressive institutions here in Tel Aviv. There’s the large Chazon Eliyahu yeshivah, and there’s the institution for girls...

Guest: Beis Shoshana.

Interviewer: Beis Shoshana, which is essentially the girls’ counterpart to Chazon Eliyahu. We’re speaking now just after you came back from the annual group photograph of the Chazon Eliyahu students. Rabbi Ephraim wrote to me that there are 80 today, boruch Hashem.

Guest: You wrote to Ephraim at the beginning, at the very beginning...

Interviewer: You wrote to him that there were only eight students.

Guest: Only eight students. So he wrote to me: from eight, there are already 80 today. I think there were more in the photograph.

Interviewer: More than 80 students?

Guest: That’s among the boys. Among the girls there’s probably a similar number too.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: And there’s—how did someone once put it? I think it’s a great source of nachas when you’re invited to officiate at a chuppah where the groom is from Chazon Eliyahu and the bride is from Beis Shoshana.

Interviewer: Yes, from Beis Shoshana. Then you can say, “Look at what we’ve raised.”

Guest: Yes. Once—I was in New York and took part in a farbrengen on Yud Shvat.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: And the next day I met someone from Givatayim [unclear]. That’s what he said to me: [unclear], yes, yes.

Interviewer: So I say, yes, that’s...

Guest: It really is true of all those students. But I do want to say one thing: Boruch Hashem, kein ayin hara, you have a family of 13 children, sons and daughters. They’re all shluchim, all of them... “All shall see and recognize that they are offspring blessed by Hashem.” And they grew up here in the heart of Tel Aviv—that’s far from something you can take for granted.

Interviewer: Did you have some particular formula? How did you know what to tell them, how to look at it? How does it work?

Guest: Friday nights. Yes. That’s the best time—even though it comes from a place of closeness, [unclear], it brings people closer. On Friday nights we make a big meal with lots of guests. There was Michael Weiger, and there was Gili Shoshan, and there was Omri Fardi—all of whom were...

Interviewer: They all became chassidim in every sense.

Guest: But these are also Shabbos meals that you share together, not just with your family but with the people you’re bringing close. At the same time, the children are exposed to conversations they wouldn’t necessarily hear in cheder or anywhere like that, and yet they keep growing and rising.

Interviewer: I remember once you sat and farbrenged in the community where I live. You spoke about how people who might have been in who-knows-what situation are now changing the world. That really is the Rebbe’s power.

And as the head shliach of such a large city, with so many shluchim transforming it and reaching every corner, what would you say to shluchim who see what’s happening and want to...

Guest: Moscow wasn’t built in a day.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: I brought in one shliach, then another shliach, and another, and another. Each one has his own map—the area he’s responsible for. Every shliach has his own map and his own area, so he can’t move into someone else’s territory.

Interviewer: And here you have all the...

Guest: I see entire networks of shluchim here in Tel Aviv, with all their activity. Even though each one has his own banner and his own camp, they’re still all under the same umbrella, and boruch Hashem, they live in peace.

Interviewer: Boruch Hashem, boruch Hashem. Even now, for a second...

Guest: Beautiful, beautiful. Siyata diShmaya in everything, yes, boruch Hashem.

Interviewer: Yes, boruch Hashem, you can see it.

Guest: The truth is, you simply have to see it. You know, I was once in Dnipro with Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki, and he told me, “Here, you don’t need to...”

Interviewer: Rabbi Kaminezki?

Guest: Rabbi Kaminezki. He told me, “Here, you don’t need to believe—you can see.” I think that applies here too: you can actually see it with your own eyes. Perhaps this handful isn’t enough to satisfy a lion, but we’ve given some sense of it here: a little of the past, a little of the present, and, with Hashem’s help, the future—with the true and complete Geulah, when the Land of Israel will spread to all lands. Perhaps they’ll take this model further, everywhere.

Interviewer: Thank you very much, Rabbi Gerlitzky, for the fascinating hour you gave us. Thank you for watching. As we conclude another podcast episode, we thank Yosef Dovid Swissa, who handled the production, and Yossi Rivkin, the CEO. See you in the next episode.