Livenyomin Omar - Episode 5: 280 students held back from shidduchim: Rabbi Chitrik in a hard-hitting conversation

Interviewer: Hello, and welcome to another new podcast episode. This time I have the privilege of visiting the home of the Rebbe’s shliach, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Chitrik, director of the Chabad House in Tzfas and a member of the board of Colel Chabad. We’ll talk about all of that. Thank you for having me. This place truly reflects the people who live here. I want to talk, of course, about the remarkable work you’re doing today and the whole educational enterprise you lead, but first let’s start at the beginning. Correct me if I’m wrong—I don’t know if there’s anyone else who had the privilege of having the Rebbe as his sandak.

Guest: Well, first of all, I did. The Rebbe was sandak for three boys—two in 5711, and me at the beginning of 5712. The first was named Yitzchak because his father was Yosef. The second was named Yosef because his father was Yitzchak. And I was Yosef Yitzchak, and that was it. So there had to be three, and that really was the reason.

Interviewer: That was the reason?

Guest: I don’t know, I don’t know. I never asked my father, but those are the facts.

Interviewer: Do you know how it came about? Did your father tell the Rebbe?

Guest: My father, a”h, was very, very close to the Rebbe. My father met the Rebbe in France, when the Rebbe came to bring Rebbetzin Chana over. And he became very close to the Rebbe—very, very close. He and Reb Zhik (Reb Chaikin) [unclear], z”l, from the year... were the two Russian bochurim who came to the Rebbe after the war, and they were the first two bochurim to come study with him. My father was there throughout those years. Later, after the histalkus of the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Rebbe was involved in his shidduch. And my mother—that’s another story—was from Tel Aviv, a Krasik.

Interviewer: Krasik? The daughter of Reb Leizer Krasik, the head of Chabad’s golus in Eretz Yisroel?

Guest: Exactly. May she live long—she was sent, she was asked by the Frierdiker Rebbe to come organize the “Shabbos gatherings,” as they were called then.

Interviewer: What’s called a “Shabbos gathering” today? It was a way to bring children closer?

Guest: So she was asked to come to the United States. The Frierdiker Rebbe brought her from Tel Aviv, from the “Tzipui Ashkenazi” seminary [unclear], to New York to run the Shabbos gatherings, as a young woman. It’s a long story—getting the paperwork, the visas and all that. Her ship sailed on Motzaei Shabbos, Yud Shvat 5710.

Interviewer: She sailed from Tel Aviv—meaning from Haifa?

Guest: From Haifa, and she didn’t know that the Frierdiker Rebbe had passed away. There were two other bochurim on the ship—one was her cousin, Shlomber Gurary, and that was actually why my grandmother, Rebbetzin Krasik, wanted her to go: because she had a cousin there in the United States. The other was a friend whose name, if I remember correctly, was Yoel [unclear]. They left on Motzaei Shabbos without knowing that the Rebbe had passed away.

They arrived—my grandmother, on the bus back from Haifa, saw in a newspaper at some stop: “The Frierdiker Rebbe, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, has passed away.” She went into a panic. My daughter is traveling to New York and the Rebbe isn’t there anymore—what is she going to do there? Her world had fallen apart. My mother arrived, and of course the three of them didn’t have the required papers, so they were sent to Ellis Island, the island near Brooklyn where they sent all the undocumented immigrants. They were there for a day or two, and Rabbi Chadakov sent a lawyer to get them out. She went over to speak to him.

When she finally arrived and sat down, she saw on television that there had been a large funeral, and it seemed he had passed away. So she ran to the Rebbe’s Ohel and said... I don’t know exactly what she said. The Rebbe—as people knew him—it was clear that this couldn’t be, couldn’t be. As he had said earlier, it wouldn’t happen; to think so was simply a deception born of a lack of faith, because this was the generation before Moshiach. That was how many people felt. Anyway, after a few days they were released, and she came to 770 and cried.

Interviewer: Meaning, “I came at the Rebbe’s invitation, and who’s going to tell me what to do now?”

Guest: Exactly. The Rebbe was standing there in 770 and told her, “You have nothing to worry about. Nothing has changed. The Frierdiker Rebbe knew in advance, and if he invited you, we have an exact plan in place: where you’ll teach in the mornings and evenings, and where the Shabbos gatherings will be. He has a drawer—go to Rabbi Chadakov and he’ll give you his work plan.” She stayed, interestingly enough, and received a passport shortly afterward.

Interviewer: Who was that, the first bochur who came to the Rebbe?

Guest: So, my father—he had spent the whole night at the Ohel, and in the morning he came to say goodbye to my parents before heading back, because his flight was that night. On Monday morning he was walking along Kingston Avenue, and the Rebbe came toward him. They met, and he stopped. We had always been friendly, so he stopped and asked how I was. I started crying. “What happened?” He said to me, “Do you know what the Rebbe told me? He told my mother too: ‘Nothing has changed.’” And that was it; the conversation ended.

Anyway, back to my mother’s story. She arrived in New York, went to Rabbi Chadakov, who gave her the plan, and she stayed. And that was the shidduch—there, on Sukkos, she got engaged. It was a shidduch the Rebbe was personally involved in. One way or another, the Rebbe was very involved, because my father had a very close relationship with him.

So she got engaged, and then, on Purim Katan, they had the wedding. The Rebbe officiated at the kiddushin. And the Rebbe wrote about it in a special “Baal Shem Tov” letter—that’s the letter with the work plan. You have to understand that in those early years, the Rebbe made an arrangement with my father. He writes in a letter to my grandfather that he had agreed with the bochur, even before the shidduch was finalized, that he would go out on shlichus.

Interviewer: That’s what he wrote to your grandfather?

Guest: Yes, it’s written there. I should say, for anyone who doesn’t know, the grandfather was also from Kronitz [unclear].

Interviewer: No, my grandfather was Krasik from Tel Aviv.

Guest: Ah, he told my grandfather, Rabbi Krasik, that he had agreed with him that he would go on shlichus. Now, my grandfather is sitting in Tel Aviv, his daughter is in New York, and he has no idea what’s going on, who agreed to what—nothing. And here’s the bochur saying, “I’m going on the Rebbe’s shlichus.” So my grandfather, in those early years—even before the Rebbe accepted the nesius—gets hold of this, and there’s a long letter from the Rebbe explaining the plan, the shlichus, and what he’s supposed to do there. One of the fundamental points is that he would establish a community, lead it, and choose a rabbi for the community—so that the rabbi would be under the head shliach. By the way, that really is the Rebbe’s plan, as I see it.

At that point the Rebbe told him: Brazil.

Interviewer: I don’t know if it was already Brazil at the time of that letter...

Guest: I think it was, because that’s when he went to Brazil. The Rebbe wrote a very long letter to my grandfather, to reassure him that nothing would go wrong. And whenever I think about that letter—the Rebbe writes, “How could a Tamim and an ordinary [unclear]...” He’s speaking about my mother, writing to her father. I don’t remember the Rebbe ever using that term again for a young woman, calling her a “Temimah.” It’s a very interesting letter: how could “a Tamim, the son of a Temimah,” be getting married without their knowing what they would build their lives on, if not shlichus? An amazing letter.

They married on Purim Katan 5713, and I was born in Cheshvan 5714. And that was that. It took a little time to work things out with the administration before they got to Brazil.

Interviewer: The bris itself went smoothly?

Guest: The bris was on Kingston. The sandaks were—one from Brownsville, one from Borough Park. I was the third of [the family] for whom the Rebbe was sandak, and people still ask me about it. It was in an apartment on Kingston Street at the corner of Eastern Parkway—there’s a large building there. That’s where it was.

Interviewer: Was it in a house, or was it an apartment?

Guest: In the apartment—the apartment where they lived.

Interviewer: And was the mohel there too?

Guest: And there was—this was on 19 Kislev 5714, and there’s a sicha of the Rebbe, a sicha at the Yud Shvat meal. A few months later the Rebbe sent them to Brazil. I was in Brazil until sometime around Tishrei 5720, for many reasons.

Interviewer: Those whole early years—do you remember being there? Do you have memories of it?

Guest: Of course, of course. The only language I spoke was—excuse me—Portuguese. I spoke neither English nor Yiddish.

Interviewer: Did your parents want you to know the language?

Guest: No, you can’t control children—you can’t influence them that much. I’m sorry, but I spoke with my friends, with the non-Jews there, and Portuguese was the only language I spoke.

Interviewer: So how did you actually move at the age of eight?

The guest: Yes, at age eight. And we went back to Brazil for a while, for a number of reasons. One reason I remember was that my mother—the classroom was small; three of us children studied in one room. Chaim Ashkenazi studied with me. His family was living there in Brazil at the time for two years—that’s another story—Rabbi Ashkenazi and his children. He was the only one in his class, and I was with three children. It couldn’t go on like that; we needed to learn. I studied with the same teacher the whole time. That was one thing: our education. And my mother couldn’t even contemplate sending a child away. It wasn’t like today, when, boruch Hashem, there are schools. My grandchildren live here too; the older ones have studied in a school like that their whole lives. Back then, it wasn’t an option. Nothing like that existed.

The interviewer: Right, sending children abroad at that age—an eight-year-old...

The guest: That wasn’t done. Even sending one to another city—

The interviewer: Was unthinkable.

The guest: So for that reason, and for other reasons too, they returned to New York. Let me tell you an interesting little story. They came back around Tishrei... When they returned, they knew they were coming back for good. Yes.

The first opportunity my father, a"h, had to take me to see the Rebbe—while he was on shlichus, he had traveled to New York once or twice to see the Rebbe, but I had never gone; taking children along wasn’t customary. The first time I went to see the Rebbe was on Erev Yom Kippur, when the Rebbe stood by the aron kodesh and gave each person a piece of honey cake. That was when my father decided to take me to the Rebbe. It wasn’t like in later years—

The interviewer: When there was an orderly line?

The guest: An orderly line, yes.

The interviewer: A line for men here, a line for women there?

The guest: No. First of all, people came from every direction—everyone pushed from every direction. There was the main step, then another step below it, and the women’s section was open too, and people came from that corridor. I had no idea what it was. I didn’t understand why they were pushing me or what was happening. I’d grown up simply, in the yeshiva, an ordinary child. They pushed and squeezed me, and I was pressed in and screaming. Somehow I got past all the steps and reached the Rebbe, crying all the while.

The interviewer: In short...

The guest: Yes, you understand—my father took the direct route, holding me like this. I was just a little boy, nine years old. I didn’t...

The guest: ...understand why they were pushing me. Finally I found myself facing the Rebbe. Now, an aside—a story within the story. I mentioned learning about the Rebbe. At home we had a large picture of the Rebbe, and a picture of the Frierdiker Rebbe [?] too, and apparently I’d gotten confused about who was who.

The interviewer: Who? [Laughter] Who was who?

The guest: I didn’t grow up in this era, when everyone has a million pictures. There was one large picture.

The interviewer: And you thought he would look more like the person in that one? [?]

The guest: I don’t know why, but I decided that... he’d look like the one in that picture. I remember those few seconds—look, it comes back to me now. [Laughter] But that was in the sukkah. I stood facing the Rebbe. It was the first time I’d seen the Rebbe since he held me, but of course I don’t remember that from when I was eight days old. So the Rebbe said, “A good sign, chassidim! If this is the first time you’ve been pressed in among chassidim, what will become of you?”

The interviewer: I’ll become...

The guest: So the Rebbe said I would be “together with chassidim.” Together with chassidim. To this day my wife and I argue over what’s better at the seminary: to leave plenty of room or to pack people in. My wife likes it spacious, so everyone is more comfortable, and I think the very closeness is a privilege for chassidim. There’s such an idea: being packed together is a privilege for chassidim. As the Ramash used to say, a tree in a yard needs supports and stakes to hold it up, but in a forest the trees all grow straight and strong because they’re together. So that closeness is part of Chassidus. This happened on Erev Yom Kippur.

The interviewer: Go on.

The guest: And then you actually started learning, meaning...

The interviewer: In class.

The guest: In seventh grade I entered the junior yeshiva [?]. I studied there until the summer break—I spent those two years there. My teachers were Rabbi Marlow, Rabbi Fuchs, Rabbi Althaus; I went through all the teachers. And during those years I also studied for quite a few years with Rabbi... His assignment was to come to the yeshiva and give a class.

The interviewer: He had no connection at all with the older bochurim?

The guest: No, none. He didn’t come into the courtyard; you didn’t see him there. But he did work with the younger bochurim for a number of years. A group was started there—that’s an interesting history in itself, how it changed. What I remember is that his job was to come to the yeshiva every evening at seven and give us a class.

The interviewer: Did he farbreng with you too?

The guest: Yes, from time to time. We really, really loved his farbrengens. They had a special warmth.

The interviewer: Yes.

The guest: Another thing: we had a classmate, Pitzi Lipsker, a brother of the Lipsker brothers in New York.

The interviewer: We loved a farbrengen as children too. It was something special.

The guest: Pitzi was known to invent some sort of “special day” now and then, just so there would be a reason for a celebration. Exactly. One day Pitzi decided we absolutely had to have a farbrengen that evening. Of course we hadn’t spoken to the Rebbe; he’d already arranged the classroom for a farbrengen. The teacher came in and saw that no one was ready to learn, that we weren’t in the mood for it. Pitzi was the spokesman for the class. There was a boy there, Motte Shavshon, who was killed in a car accident—a wonderful Jew, a bochur. “We want a farbrengen today!” [Laughter] The teacher said, “You want a farbrengen? We’ll have one.” Suddenly Pitzi said a word: “Chutzpah”—as it says about the days of Moshiach, “chutzpah.”

The interviewer: The Rebbe said something to him that I’ve never forgotten: “Chutzpah is a sign of Moshiach, not a vessel for Moshiach.”

The guest: That settled it. It’s a sign of Moshiach. You mentioned a farbrengen—that happened in the junior yeshiva. So I brought it up, by the way. All right. I studied all those years in the junior yeshiva, and then I went to Morristown—no, it wasn’t Morristown; it was Newark [?].

The interviewer: Ah, Newark.

The guest: That was the first incarnation of... No, afterward I studied at a yeshiva in [unclear], New York. Then the usual progression was to come to 770. That’s how I arrived at 770.

The interviewer: That year—or roughly a year later—you found yourself among “the seven bochurim.”

The guest: That was a little later.

The interviewer: Let’s explain for anyone who doesn’t know what “the seven bochurim” means. The yeshiva administration would choose seven bochurim.

The guest: Actually, since you asked, it was an idea of the Rebbe’s, from a farbrengen with the Rebbe. It’s also a very interesting educational approach, worth mentioning. The idea is to take a group and raise them up, and they’ll lead the rest of the class and motivate the other bochurim.

The interviewer: But singling out seven bochurim as being above everyone else—doesn’t that create jealousy and resentment?

The guest: No, because everyone has a role. “I am giving you a position of authority”—there’s a structure to it. You had to meet certain conditions, including learning an extra hour after the evening study session. There were seven bochurim for Nigleh and seven for Chassidus.

The interviewer: And which group were you in?

The guest: I was in Chassidus. Once a week, you were supposed to deliver a pilpul in Chassidus.

The interviewer: Did you have to present it to someone beforehand?

The guest: We had to speak with the Rebbe about it. So the Rebbe called us in—seven bochurim from that group, from my class. We said, “With respect, we want to do it, but to sit and study it and then present it in front of everyone?” The Rebbe told us something beautiful, which I still remember. The Rebbe said, “When you begin learning Chassidus, take a topic, work it through and understand it well. If you understand it, you’ll want to share it.”

The interviewer: You’ll want to share it—why? Were you embarrassed to present it?

The guest: Because when you don’t know it, you’re embarrassed. But when something is clear to you, when a person has studied something well and knows it, he loves telling his friend about it. “Come hear what I learned today!” You come in full of energy; you want to give it over, you want to run with it. That’s what the Rebbe told us in the Rebbe’s little room, next to Dovid Raskin, that small room. The seven of us went in with Dovid Raskin and Rabbi Riel—all of us. [Laughter]

Right, but that wasn’t how it started. I got there, to [unclear], to [unclear]. And I’ll tell you something interesting: my parents lived at President and Kingston—as close as you could possibly get. Yes, my mother still lives there, baruch Hashem, to this day; may she live to 120. I spent two years in Newark, before it closed. At home I had been a day student, but there I was a boarder, completely.

Interviewer: And then you started coming?

Guest: I still went home to eat three times a day, and I slept there at night.

Interviewer: You slept at home?

Guest: Of course. I was only a “visiting boarder,” not really a boarder. Around that time I started pestering my father: I wanted a bed in the dormitory, there, in the living quarters. The dormitory hadn’t even come into being yet. There was just a building across the street.

Interviewer: Where the institutions are today?

Guest: There were only rooms there, no offices or anything—just the bochurim’s rooms, above the zal.

Interviewer: And you wanted...

Guest: I said, “I’m asking them for a bed. I’m not saying I’ll stay in the dormitory all the time. I’ll come home to say hello, but I want a bed.” My father spoke to Dovid Raskin, his former classmate. My father thought, “What will he think—that we aren’t getting along? That the child doesn’t want to be at home?” [laughter] But I said, “You have a good, orderly home, baruch Hashem, but I want to be a boarder.” When I wanted something, I wasn’t a little child about it. One day my father went and spoke to Dovid Raskin. I remember my father coming back, his face flushed. Reb Dovid had said, “Yes, that’s how it should be. Good for him.” He immediately gave me a bed, upstairs in the branch. “That’s how it should be”—and that’s how I came to live in the dormitory.

After that I was a shliach in Oak Park [unclear]. Oak Park—Newark had already closed by then, and someone would sometimes send me there on Fridays. They were looking for shluchim, so I was a shliach there.

Interviewer: Was that before... I mean, had the whole matter of the Rebbe’s home begun by then?

Guest: No, that hadn’t begun yet. This was during those holidays when there were meals in the previous Rebbe’s home and bochurim would go in.

Interviewer: That’s something else again?

Guest: Right. The Rebbe ate upstairs in the previous Rebbe’s home, until the Rebbetzin—the previous Rebbe’s daughter, who hosted the meals—passed away. So of course I attended every Seder I could. There are many stories about the Sedarim themselves, but that’s another subject. I make a Seder every year, for example, and invite the girls from the schools too. Yes, it’s very interesting, but that’s something else. Officially, you were allowed to come only to the Seder; you weren’t allowed in for the other meals. But there were various ways I managed to get in here and there, and there were hardly any people there. I was there on Seder night—I was there for ten Sedarim or more, watching the Rebbe’s Seder. That’s another matter.

So I studied at [unclear], and I was a shliach in Oak Park, in the dormitory with the bochurim, who...

Interviewer: Whom you were supposed to work with as a shliach, so to speak?

Guest: Mendy Groner, Mendy Grochowski, Zuprovitch [unclear]—that whole group. Those were the bochurim in the yeshivah ketanah there in Oak Park. Baruch Hashem, I was with a very fine, very good group—there was Yeshayahu [unclear], Yossel Gutnick, Shlomo Bendt. A very fine group of bochurim. We learned there that year, and then in Nissan we returned to the branch, to the yeshivah gedolah. The Rebbe chose me to go to Australia for two years. I was already older, already in my twenties.

Interviewer: And did they ask whether that would be a problem for you?

Guest: I said no. I didn’t ask my parents. It wasn’t a problem.

Interviewer: You knew in advance that it would be for two years?

Guest: I knew it was two years. They were the two most beautiful years of my life.

Interviewer: The two most beautiful years of your life?

Guest: Yes, those two years. You’re cut off from the whole world, at the end of the world. They were the best two years you could have. There were no faxes, no WhatsApp, nothing, no podcasts [laughter]. Zero, zero. We had to live with the bochurim there twenty-four hours a day—Shabbos, Yom Tov, Sukkos, Rosh Hashanah, everything. We spent two years with the bochurim. Two years with the bochurim—you have no idea.

Interviewer: Holidays, everything, Pesach?

Guest: Everything. We were there for two years. You understand, I’m in Australia, and the bochurim studying there are Australians.

Interviewer: Only Australians? No one from anywhere else?

Guest: Only Australians. And you speak with them in English?

Interviewer: Oh, we spoke English.

Guest: These were bochurim who had never gone away, had never seen the Rebbe. None of the bochurim there had seen the Rebbe. They were simply bochurim who had been drawn closer; today they’re part of the Chabad community. And baruch Hashem, we had real success with those bochurim, because we lived with them. We didn’t just “work” with them. There was no network yet, and each of the six bochurim had his own class. After his class, he would learn Chassidus with them and learn Nigleh with them. Those were the two most... You can understand: I was there for two years, through Pesach, Lag BaOmer, Pesach.

My mother and father spoke to me on the phone five times in those two years. Today a little girl who doesn’t speak to her mother twice can still keep in touch. But over those two years, it was five times: twice on Yom Kippur [unclear], twice when they called on my birthday to say hello, and once when my mother called to say that my grandmother had passed away—Grandmother Krasik had passed away—and to tell me she was traveling to Eretz Yisroel for the burial. My grandmother passed away in New York, and they took her there for burial. She had slipped and fallen.

So, in short, you can understand what five calls in two years means. But I lived it—you know what? I really lived it. That’s why I want to tell you, and I stress this: when we opened the yeshivah, I said it would be only on condition that everyone lived in the dormitory, without exception. No one would suddenly sleep somewhere else.

Interviewer: The only exceptions I allow are some of the girls, and that too was by request. I wasn’t so willing to agree. My brother-in-law Rabbi Kaplan, a”h, asked me to try, so I permitted girls from Tzfas whose parents live here to sleep at home. To this day, some girls come that way and still take part in everything. I don’t go home—I took this to heart; I felt it. I spent two years in Australia, and when I was here, I asked for a place to sleep. I felt that this is what shapes a person: being there twenty-four hours a day, living it.

So truly, the two most beautiful years I had—and I’m telling you this, of course I keep saying it—were a life, a real life. No newspapers, no radio, nothing. Completely cut off, zero. That’s something.

Around Lag BaOmer, I came back—we all came back, the whole group.

Interviewer: The whole group?

Guest: On Erev Pesach, I had just arrived. It’s interesting: on Erev Pesach I stood in line for the distribution of matzos. Everyone received two pieces, and the Rebbe gave me a whole matzah. I’ll tell you something—my reaction went through the roof. That was everything, everything. During those two years there, the Rebbe wrote us personal letters, truly personal letters.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: “The young man Yosef Yitzchok”—yes, genuinely personal letters. If we wrote a letter, we received a personal letter in return. The Rebbe recognized the challenge. Now I’m going back to 5733: we went in for yechidus.

Interviewer: Was 5733 when you left?

Guest: I’m going back—when we left for there, we had a yechidus.

Interviewer: You had a yechidus beforehand?

Guest: I think it was in 5732. What happened was this: there were six of us going, and they also invited six who had returned to come into the Rebbe’s room together with us. The six of us stood by the window, and the six who had returned stood by the bookcase, near the door to the library. Rabbi Chadakov was beside the Rebbe. The Rebbe asked Chadakov, “Is this everyone? All of them?” He said, “Yes.” “So these are the ones going, and those are the ones returning?” “Yes.” “Where are you from?” We were the fourth group; the ones who had returned were the third group. The Rebbe asked, “Where are the earlier ones?” And he answered—what was it? The Rebbe kept asking, and I began to move.

The Rebbe asked for the others to be called: “Where are they? What are they doing?” The Rebbe kept asking. I started to move, and someone standing next to me gave me a little nudge [?]: “Stay put, calm down” [laughter]. So I said to myself, I’ll go call them. He had heard that the Rebbe wanted them, but they had to do it themselves, you understand? It took a long time. So the Rebbe stood there, and for ten minutes you stood there hearing: “Kaplan! Kaplan! [unclear]! [unclear]! Minkowitz! Where is everybody?” People started shouting. Meanwhile, the Rebbe was standing there, watching. After about ten minutes I went in, and everyone came in; everyone got there. The Rebbe delivered a maamar to us, a maamar—[unclear]. And afterward, when we traveled, the Rebbe didn’t want us to go directly. We had to travel through Eretz Yisroel, not straight there. We spent a week in England and then a week in Eretz Yisroel, in Jerusalem.

Interviewer: The Rebbe [unclear], and then you were in Cyprus, India, Indonesia, and so on, until you reached Australia?

Guest: Australia, yes.

Interviewer: So that was the trip to Australia.

Guest: I’m going back now to the story of Pesach 5733. When we returned, I was very, very moved. The Rebbe had given you matzah there. I’m standing there on Motzaei Pesach—there’s a farbrengen at which the Rebbe gives out l’chaim, after every Yom Tov—and I’m standing in line. My turn comes, and I’m thinking to myself, “Well done, I’m going past the Rebbe with a little cup.” The Rebbe gives me some, and then the Rebbe gives me a bottle of wine.

Interviewer: A bottle of wine?

Guest: Wine, not mashke. Yes, the Rebbe gave me a bottle of wine. The Rebbe said, “This is for your students.” I told myself: Stop thinking about yourself; think about your students. That was the message.

Interviewer: That was a very clear message?

Guest: Yes. So we came back—it was Pesach—I returned to 770 and learned there. There was an instruction from the Rebbe not to leave the shlichus for anything, and they were busy with all sorts of things in Australia. So I stayed there during the summer too.

Interviewer: After you had already been on shlichus for two years, wasn’t there an instruction that you shouldn’t join the boys going out on Merkos Shlichus in the summer, but should keep learning there?

Guest: So we were there until Lag BaOmer, and afterward we went back to learning. I got married in Lod, baruch Hashem.

Interviewer: Did the Rebbe also officiate at your kiddushin?

Guest: No, the Rebbe didn’t officiate at my kiddushin. The Rebbe had already stopped doing that. I got married in Detroit because a week or a month earlier my sister had gotten married in Peekskill—my sister got married in New York. I very, very much wanted to get married in New York, near the Rebbe’s window, of course.

Below is the cleaned, readable Hebrew transcript based on the instructions:

Guest: Someone needs to accompany them. It’s like I said before: you’re not just a potted plant sitting in the yard, you know.

Interviewer: Yes, yes, they need to be together.

Guest: So I wrote to the Rebbe, very simply, that I had decided to refer them to other institutions.

Interviewer: Not to Chabad?

Guest: Not to institutions of our own.

Interviewer: The Rebbe wrote back to you.

Guest: “I decided”—one person cannot make that decision alone.

Interviewer: You don’t have the right to decide on your own. Only Hakadosh Boruch Hu judges alone. What do you think?

Guest: I had decided, yes, fine. At the same time I started thinking: Where should we do it? We need to establish a seminary here. I can’t be both there and here; it needs to be done. So we started, and there was a Jew named Shlomo Tzoref.

Interviewer: I didn’t know him, Shlomo Tzoref.

Guest: Another Shlomo. He was a baal teshuvah, and he had been a teacher at a seminary, a local Jew.

Interviewer: In Tivon?

Guest: He was a baal teshuvah. He had taught in Nahalal, at the kibbutz teachers’ seminary, and afterward he became the seminary’s director.

Interviewer: The kibbutz teachers’ seminary.

Guest: Yes, yes. I mean, the kibbutz teachers’ seminary was in Nahalal.

Interviewer: Yes.

Guest: I would bring him in to give lectures, and one year there was no pedagogical supervisor, so he served as the pedagogical supervisor. There was someone who very much wanted me to open a seminary here, and he brought me to—

Interviewer: Was he close to Chabad?

Guest: Yes, he was one of ours too, completely. And he knew the director of Gordon, the state teachers’ college.

Interviewer: Gordon State High School, yes.

Guest: No, not the high school. The teachers’ college, Gordon College in Haifa.

Interviewer: So he knew him as this fellow—this older Jew with a long white beard and a hat. That’s how the director walked in.

Guest: Yes, he walked in. They say that once he came to speak about the women at an education gathering, and they told him, “Next time, tell the director not to send his assistant.” He convinced Gordon College [clears throat] to recognize us. We met the director on Shabbos, and the director of Gordon College said [clears throat], “Yes, why not? I have a branch in Jerusalem for the chareidim. Chabad? Why not?”

Interviewer: And that was it—he agreed: “Yes, we’ll be a branch of Gordon.” Right away, the director of Sha’anan, Weinberg, heard about it. He said, “If Gordon is doing it, then our religious college, Sha’anan, certainly should.” So now there were two cards in hand, Gordon and Sha’anan. I came to Rabbi Hefer with those two cards: “What do you want? Which do you suggest, Gordon or Sha’anan? Or will you give me another option?” And he let me establish a branch. That’s how it began [laughter] [breathing heavily].

Interviewer: To approach him, yes.

Guest: So we opened the branch, and that was it, we got started. The first year we didn’t even have a classroom, nowhere to be. My wife was the director of Or Menachem for girls in Tzfas, and she gave me a classroom there. That’s how it started.

Interviewer: That’s history.

Guest: Over time it also became a parallel institution for girls from abroad. That institution grew little by little.

Interviewer: Little by little.

Guest: It started with two girls from abroad in the Israeli classes the first year. Then five—I wasn’t going to open a separate track for that. When there were fifteen or twenty, there was enough for a class, though not a separate class; some of the students in the class were from abroad. That’s how it started, and little by little it grew. Today they’re two separate institutions under one roof, but with different schedules, different teachers, and different vacations. Back then—no, G-d forbid, don’t think there were separate dorms for girls from abroad and Israeli girls. No, G-d forbid, that wasn’t possible. Today they really are two separate institutions. It’s history now: there are 150 from abroad and 200 Israelis. It has become history.

Interviewer: Yes, and this history—let’s look at it. I can say personally, as a father of a daughter: my only daughter studies with you, and she really comes home like a different person, thank G-d—in her language, her expressions, her way of thinking. It’s unbelievable. I ask myself, it’s unbelievable to expect a girl not just to support the Temimim, but to be, as you said, the kind of temimah the Rebbe wrote about.

Guest: Who opened the girls’ high school in New York? The Rebbe was at the center of education. The Rebbe was the one who opened it for the girls. It was entirely the Rebbe. It’s under Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch in the New York area, and it remains under Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch to this day, to this day.

Interviewer: And the truth is, the results speak for themselves; you can see it. As I said, I wanted to clarify a few things. For example, one thing you actually tell the girls—something I’ve already learned about—is that you recommend they travel for Rosh Hashanah.

Guest: Yes. They’re here, and then, as Tishrei approaches, they get up and travel to the Rebbe. There’s already a program, and everything is arranged.

Interviewer: But still, isn’t there a risk? Aren’t you concerned about the outside influences, let’s call them that, when you send them to New York? These aren’t the years when they could watch the Rebbe come in and go out.

Guest: Still, you yourself write explicitly that we recommend it, and that it’s important. And a girl who’s truly serious comes back with a great sense of holiness, with experiences and substance.

Interviewer: Certainly, certainly. But I have doubts, I have fears. If you aren’t prepared for it and you travel to New York without really going to the Rebbe, then—

Guest: But our girls are good girls. And whoever travels, travels to the Rebbe. She isn’t spending $1,000 or more just to go shopping.

Interviewer: Yes, that’s clear. The question is whether, along the way, they might drift in other directions.

The guest: Within our own framework, we try to give them the right education as much as we can. Beyond that, it’s no longer in our hands. We have classes; I call them; mashpi’im hold farbrengens with them. I do what I can. But there’s only so much we can do. The Rebbe foresaw this situation. This is our final test: to send our sons and daughters to the Rebbe, with Hashem’s help.

The interviewer: Before we started talking, you mentioned a startling figure. You said you have an organized list of young women who still haven’t—

The guest: Yes. It’s a painful subject, a painful subject, a painful subject. And unfortunately, I don’t do enough about it.

The interviewer: What—you have an organized list?

The guest: Of all our students who are still unmarried, from the day the seminary was founded until today.

The interviewer: So you have an organized list. What do you do with it? You send it—and it’s a long list, about 270, 280 young women?

The guest: Fewer... Yes, and that’s from age [unclear] and up, from age [unclear] and up. It’s painful, very painful.

The interviewer: First of all, I take it to the Ohel. Every time I travel to New York, I take it with me, and I also send it to the Ohel. What can I say? It’s painful, very painful. Today—I don’t want to blame anyone—but with the internet and photos, when people ask about a young woman, they ask to see a picture. I don’t want to get into it, but it’s painful. Everyone knows everything. In our day, when you heard that someone had become engaged, you might say, “Who is that? I didn’t even know he had a daughter!” You heard about a daughter twice: when she was born and when she became a kallah. Today everyone puts everything out there.

The interviewer: Everything is out in the open, and everyone talks about it.

The guest: And then, when she goes on a date and he goes on a date, all their friends know. It’s very hard. This generation needs—it's very hard, very hard. I think one of the things I tried to put a stop to was sending pictures.

The interviewer: I’ve seen you fighting an uphill battle.

The guest: But it’s impossible. The young man, the family—no, the family, the mother wants to... So, you know... [unclear] before the young man.

The interviewer: Yes, the young man.

The guest: The young woman, before the young man—give him the picture. What? [unclear] [laughter] How can you give the picture before the young man [unclear]?

The interviewer: Fascinating, really fascinating. Far beyond what I expected. I’m sure everyone who watches this will discover so many things they didn’t know. Truly, thank you very much, and thank you for the good news as well.

The guest: Good news. May you continue to succeed, and live to 120 with good years and days and iron health.

The interviewer: You don’t need our blessing, but I’ll say it anyway, both personally and more broadly. I think I speak for everyone who has ever had a daughter or granddaughter here. Thank you so much for the time you’ve given us and for opening your home to us. And thank you all for watching.

Thank you to Yosef Dovid Tzvi, who made the whole trip to Tzfas with me. Thank you.

>> Excuse me.

Thank you to Yossi Rivkin, the CEO. Thank you for watching. See you in the next episode.

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