Lehisraanen Episode 21: Rabbi Yehuda Alharar (Emanuel)

00:01 Speaker 1 Shalom aleichem. Welcome to another episode of the Lehitra’anein podcast, where chassidim share stories about their lives with the Rebbe. This time, we’ll refresh our connection to the Rebbe with the chossid and shliach Rabbi Yehuda Elcharar, joining us here from the holy city of Emmanuel. Shalom, Rabbi Elcharar.

00:19 Speaker 2 Shalom u’vrachah.

00:20 Speaker 1 Let’s start with the question I ask everyone: Fun vanen zent ir? Where are you from? Where did you come from?

00:26 Speaker 2 Okay. Where did I come from? My story goes like this. I was born in Morocco, more than eighty years ago, baruch Hashem. Uh—

00:40 Speaker 1 You weren’t born more than eighty years ago.

00:42 Speaker 2 Yes.

00:42 Speaker 1 Yes.

00:44 Speaker 2 And we lived in Agadir, in southern Morocco, where the earthquake happened.

00:55 Speaker 1 Later on—

00:56 Speaker 2 Later on.

00:56 Speaker 1 Good thing you got away [?].

00:57 Speaker 2 Of course, of course. And there, the Rebbe’s shliach was Rabbi Azriel Chaikin, shlita, who, baruch Hashem, is now in—

01:11 Speaker 1 Crown Heights.

01:11 Speaker 2 Crown Heights. He lived in Strasbourg itself.

01:14 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

01:15 Speaker 2 We were boys then. For some reason, our parents felt it was a mark of distinction to put us in non-Jewish schools. There was no high school in a Jewish school, so we had to go there.

01:38 Speaker 1 By “gymnasium,” you mean high school.

01:40 Speaker 2 High school, yes. And since I was already becoming more observant of Shabbos, I had a very serious problem. On Shabbos, I had to find a reason not to come, or else come but not write or carry anything. To this day, I have nightmares where it’s Shabbos, and I get up and go to school without carrying anything, just to listen to the lessons. That’s how deeply it stayed with me...

02:09 Speaker 1 Was there a large Jewish community in Agadir?

02:12 Speaker 2 Not a large one. I’d guess—I'm not sure of the numbers—maybe ten thousand Jews.

02:20 Speaker 1 Oh, that is large, though not compared with the major cities.

02:23 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:23 Speaker 1 Meknes and...

02:25 Speaker 2 It was a new city. Many people came from different places because it was developing very quickly, and it was also a tourist city at the foot of the Atlas Mountains. So it really is a seismic area. And eventually there was an earthquake there. Now, here’s what happened. There was the Sinai War, and as you know—

02:51 Speaker 1 Nineteen...

02:52 Speaker 2 Yes. As you know, Morocco was not nearly as hostile as the Arab countries around us. But they had to make a show of it, so they stopped formal emigration to Israel. In practice, though—

03:14 Speaker 1 Until then, anyone who wanted to could leave normally.

03:15 Speaker 2 Anyone who wanted to could leave normally, yes. It was always a country that was very, very fond of the Jews. The kings, too, protected the Jews, especially during World War II. Emissaries of the Nazis, may their names be erased, came and began registering the Jews and so on. The king told them, “Don’t touch the Jews. They’re no less Moroccan than we are. In fact, they were here even before Islam came to Morocco.” He tried to protect us, of course, but they had already registered people. My father and grandfather, of blessed memory—my maternal grandfather—were government employees. No, no, no. So they could be dismissed, and they were dismissed. Yes. Well, that was precisely when the largest wave of emigration happened, because people felt: Are we going to be trapped here? We—

04:08 Speaker 1 Meaning, once they closed off emigration.

04:10 Speaker 2 Once they closed it off, that was precisely when people began leaving by unofficial routes. I remember hearing that an emissary had arrived, undercover, of course. He registered those who wanted to go to Israel and gave them tickets and instructions about where to go: to Tangier, in northern Morocco, right by the Strait of Gibraltar, across from Spain. We were to get there, and from there the journey would continue. There was a ship that went directly from there to Haifa. So I told my parents, “Either we all go together, or I’m going to sign up myself.” I still remember my parents saying, “No, no, we won’t be separated.” My parents, of blessed memory, and I ran quickly to the shul and caught him before he left.

05:02 Speaker 1 The emissary of the—

05:03 Speaker 2 The emissary, apparently, yes. Yes.

05:05 Speaker 1 Just a second, though. Before that, Rabbi Chaikin was already in your city?

05:09 Speaker 2 Of course he was. He certainly was.

05:10 Speaker 1 What do you remember about him? What year did he arrive?

05:15 Speaker 2 I don’t remember the year.

05:16 Speaker 1 Approximately. When you were fifteen or sixteen?

05:19 Speaker 2 I was fourteen or fifteen then. Yes.

05:22 Speaker 1 And what did he—what did he tell you? Did he speak about the Rebbe?

05:24 Speaker 2 I remember him. He may not have spoken to us personally, directly. We were a group of boys led by one of the boys, who was two or three years older than us. His name was Yitzchak—Yitzchak Ochayon. Baruch Hashem, he’s alive and still there in Agadir.

05:44 Speaker 1 He’s still in Agadir?

05:45 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. His whole story is well known. We’ll get to it soon. Anyway, that’s how we came to Israel. And then, two years after we had left, it turned out that because my father had worked for a Jew named Sabag, who owned buses and so on, a Jewish family had come to take my father’s place. They lived in our old house too, because it was close to the job. It turned out that the house we had lived in was built in the Arab style—simple construction, not reinforced concrete and so on, as they build today. The house sank into the ground, and they were not given a Jewish burial.

06:34 Speaker 1 In the earthquake that happened in—

06:35 Speaker 2 In the earthquake, yes. And some of my relatives too—I have cousins and more distant relatives who were not given a Jewish burial.

06:46 Speaker 1 Wow. So by pushing your family to move to Israel, you saved them from the earthquake.

06:51 Speaker 2 And that’s why, on the bitter, difficult day of Gimmel Tammuz, I rushed to the airport and, baruch Hashem, managed to board the jumbo jet that took us to—

07:07 Speaker 1 For the passing.

07:09 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, to...

07:11 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

07:13 Speaker 2 Reporters from all the networks were putting microphones in front of every Chabad chossid. “What do you say? How will Chabad carry on in Israel without the Rebbe?” For Chabad, the Rebbe is like a father and mother to each person. When they put a microphone in front of me, I said, “The Rebbe saved my life twice.” They said, “Oh, that’s something new. What do you mean, twice?” I said, “Both spiritually and physically. If I hadn’t become close to Chabad, I wouldn’t have been moved to leave Morocco. Then who knows what would have happened to us in the earthquake?”

07:45 Speaker 1 In other words, because you were becoming more religious, you decided you wanted to leave Morocco, and that led your family to—

07:51 Speaker 2 Becoming closer to religion? No, not exactly. We were religious already, but Chabad strengthened that connection.

07:57 Speaker 1 It strengthened you, yes.

07:59 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem, from my bar mitzvah onward, I was always—I mean, no, no. I really did observe mitzvos before that too, because Moroccan Jews in general are traditional, as you know. Exactly, exactly. But becoming stronger through Chabad is another story. Through that, baruch Hashem, we merited to become chassidim. Mm-hmm. Well, we arrived in Israel. My parents said, “You wanted a yeshiva. There’s Kfar HaRo’eh, which is both a yeshiva and offers secular studies.” “Where did you live in Israel?” “We lived in Netanya.” “Ah, excellent.” The first relatives who arrived in Netanya had come right around... “The founding of the state.” “The founding of the state. So one person brought the next.” “Right.” Well, I didn’t want to go against my parents. Maybe among Sephardim there’s a particularly strong respect for parents—I don’t quite know how to explain it. I didn’t want too much conflict, especially with my father. He was the head of the family, and it wasn’t simple. So I thought: As a new immigrant, I’ll go to Kfar HaRo’eh for a few months, maybe a year. Once I’m settled in and have learned Hebrew, I’ll start learning more Gemara and so on, and then I’ll go to Tomchei Temimim in Lod. “Oh, you already had that direction in mind? You knew—” “Of course. I knew that was where I was headed. I wanted—” “Meaning Rabbi Chaikin had already given you a foundation in...” “Yes, yes, yes. Not directly, but as we said earlier.” “Mm-hmm. All right. And... you went to Kfar HaRo’eh.” “Yes. I studied at Kfar HaRo’eh as a new immigrant, without studying—without an ulpan, without anything. But that’s how things were done then. You went in, jumped into the water, and learned to swim. That was it. Fortunately for me, Reb Moshe Schneerson, of blessed memory, was there. He lived in Kfar HaRo’eh.” “Reb Moishe Zalman.” “Yes. It seems his father, back when Kfar Chabad didn’t yet exist, perhaps at the beginning...”

10:18 Speaker 2 Around the time the State was founded, people bought houses, or perhaps land, in Kfar HaRoeh. I imagine that’s why he lived there. He taught Gemara in the agricultural yeshiva—Reb Moshe, Reb Moshe Schneerson. I heard people calling him Schneerson and thought, “He’s related to the Rebbe.” I had landed in good hands. I began to stick close to him and press him to teach me Tanya. Imagine: as soon as I started learning Tanya, I became so excited about it that to this day I haven’t stopped giving Tanya classes. I’ve given them in several languages—in Italian, in French, in Hebrew, of course. Once we even went to new immigrants; we would travel to encourage them in Arabic. Languages are languages! And to this day, Boruch Hashem, I continue giving classes in the Shomron, in Karnei Shomron and Yakir. Wonderful—may you continue for many good years. So what year was that? Well, yes. He was my Gemara teacher. What year was it? It was in 5708. At the end of the year, I received my report card and decided that instead of going home, I would go straight to Lod, with a referral to Rabbi Monya Grusman and Rabbi Yehoshua Segal [?], may he live and be well. Yes, may Hashem grant him a complete recovery. Amen, amen. He has been my aseh lecha rav from then until today. I think I belong in the Guinness Book of Records: I’m sure no one else has had an aseh lecha rav for so many years—sixty-plus years, right up to today. He was the Rebbe’s brother-in-law. Yes, yes, his brother-in-law from abroad. Brothers-in-law, yes. So I entered the yeshiva. When my parents asked, “What are you doing there? Why didn’t you come home?” I said, “I have to learn Gemara more deeply, and everything else I missed in my studies. That’s why I went to the yeshiva.” Then a new year began,

12:55 Speaker 2 and I didn’t return to Kfar HaRoeh. They contacted my parents at home, and my parents contacted me: “They’re looking for you. Why aren’t you going back?” “I’m happy here.” The first time my family saw me wearing a cap, as was customary then, and with the beginnings of a beard—what a commotion! The whole family wrote me very harsh letters, in French, of course. They didn’t know Chabad yet. “Are you going to throw stones at Jews on Shabbos?” That was what they knew from the demonstrations in Jerusalem. Try explaining to them that Chabad was a completely different world, and so on. In short, as the years went by, they made peace with my decision, of course, and my parents came to the yeshiva. There’s an interesting story here that’s well worth telling. I consulted my aseh lecha rav, Rabbi Yehoshua, about what to do with all the arguments. He told me, “Take the whole bundle of letters, in French, send them all to the Rebbe, and ask for a bracha.” That’s what I did. The Rebbe read all the letters and sent a reply to Rabbi Shlomo Chaim. I think there was also a letter to me. The Rebbe told Rabbi Shlomo Chaim to draw me close, call me in, and explain that one doesn’t argue. I should say that I was following the path of all the yeshiva students, all those who study Torah, and when the time comes: “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, then I will give your rains in their proper time.” Part of their question was also, “How will you earn a living?” Yes, they wanted me to study—that was the basis of it. But then there was the matter of mitzvos: you’re going to learn Torah? What does that mean? So the Rebbe answered you, essentially, through Rabbi Shlomo Chaim. Rabbi Shlomo Chaim brought me the letters in French. Wait—Rabbi Shlomo Chaim brought you the French letters? The Rebbe returned them? He returned the whole bundle to Rabbi Shlomo

15:03 Speaker 2 Chaim. You sent the family’s letters, the Rebbe read them, and returned them to you? He returned them all to Rabbi Shlomo Chaim, with a letter addressed to him. I don’t know what he wrote to him. Rabbi Shlomo Chaim explained to me, “The Rebbe wants me to explain to you...” Right. So Rabbi Shlomo Chaim told you he was explaining it because the Rebbe had instructed him to. Exactly. And that was the way forward. There was no point arguing, because nothing ever comes of arguments. I also received a letter in which the Rebbe blessed me. Now pay attention: here you’ll see a miracle from the Rebbe. It’s very interesting. The Rebbe wrote me a letter that repeated what we mentioned earlier—to carry on without arguing, and so on. But he added that soon my parents, too, would be pleased with me. Soon. “Soon his parents, too, will be pleased with him.” Yes, yes. I thought, “Wow, that’s an actual promise!” At the time, I didn’t go home for Shabbos because I had a sister in the army, and the atmosphere just didn’t work. It wasn’t a Shabbos atmosphere. So I would come once a week, in the middle of the week. But how could I cover the travel costs? I would give a Tanya class at a Poalei Agudas Yisroel school. Several young men there became close to Chabad. In which city? Netanya. And that covered my bus fare. That’s how I would come. I don’t remember exactly; I think it was Tuesday evening, something like that, at [unclear] in the city center. Yes, several came out of it. Who? I don’t remember names now; it was years ago. I know that there are several families by now. Then I would visit my parents. In those days, telephones weren’t so common. There were postcards, but a postcard went by regular mail: send it today and it would arrive tomorrow

17:15 Speaker 2 or the next day. Then I received a postcard saying, “Since you regularly come on Tuesday evenings, this time a guest is coming, a friend of your father’s, and he wants to see you. So if you’re planning to come, please make sure you arrive at your usual time, and he’ll be there.” Yes, of course. They asked if I was coming that Tuesday, and I said yes. Now listen to what happened. I arrived and saw a Jew about my father’s age, with a serious face. He said to me, “Sit down, sit here.” My father was a forceful man, but beside him he was quiet and calm. I didn’t understand it. He wasn’t saying anything. I watched to see what was happening. Then this man began: “Listen, people from Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim came to Morocco and persuaded us to give them our children. They took them to the kibbutzim”—that was what people knew at the time—“and ruined them completely. They ruined all my children. I have only my youngest child left,” my father’s friend said. “I’m trying to make sure he won’t be lost too. And you,” he said to my father, “have been blessed with a son who wants to learn Torah all day, and instead of supporting him, you give him a hard time. I don’t understand you.” Then he turned to me. I kissed his hand and hurried away. What was going on? He said to me, “Tell me, why is ‘Honor your father and your mother’ placed next to Shabbos?” Yes, in the Ten Commandments. “It teaches that if your father tells you...” In Parshas Devarim—that if your father tells you not to learn, you mustn’t listen to him. Yes, you mustn’t listen. That’s what this friend said. Then he told me, “Listen, you obey your parents, and that’s all well and good. But if they tell you not to learn in yeshiva, you mustn’t listen to them.” Well,

19:39 Speaker 2 in the end my father got up, kissed me, and said, “My son, I’m only worried about you. I feel it’s my duty. I want what’s best for you. I want you to have a profession.” I said, “Dad, that’s the whole point. I promise you I’ll come away with one profession or two, so you can be at ease about that.” There were tears in his eyes. And the Rebbe had said “soon”—soon my parents would be pleased. Here it was, happening. “I’m not against it,” my father said. “If you can just promise me that, and I see that you’re happy, then I’m behind you.” He got up and went to the wardrobe, looking for a tie. “Here, I want to fix your tie for Shabbos.” I said, “I’m a Tomim with a cap, a shaved head and a beard—what do I need a tie for? Who wears a tie?” “No, no, no.” From then on, he said, “Come home. Whatever hiddurim you want, tell your mother and we’ll do it all for you. Everything is fine.” So the Rebbe’s bracha came true immediately. Immediately, immediately. Yes. Did you have further contact with Rabbi Shlomo Chaim after that? A connection developed, certainly. I gained so very much from him. He shaped me. I’ll never forget Rabbi Shlomo Chaim and the person he was, ever. And one thing leads to another. We’re speaking freely, of course, just as things come to mind. At that time, Moroccan boys arrived who had studied in Brunoy under Rabbi Nissan. They kept repeating, “Rabbi Nissan, Rabbi Nissan, Rabbi Nissan.” I told myself, “I have to see Rabbi Nissan and get to know him.” To see him. And I really did see the difference between those two great personalities. Yes. In any case, what I saw in Rabbi Shlomo Chaim was a joyful man.

21:41 Speaker 2 The way he walked—like a young man with a white beard—and his dignified face, his smile, his joy for life. If he wanted to speak with us, that was the greatest pleasure. The way he related to the students—yes, he understood teenagers. He really couldn’t bear it when boys suddenly decided on their own to become chassidim without going through him, without guidance. He would always say, “External! External!” He couldn’t stand that. That was Rabbi Shlomo Chaim’s approach. He would always mention various boys, of blessed memory—Rabbi Micha Sternberg, and... well, I can’t remember the other name now. I’ll remember later. Yes. I myself didn’t really merit to be an oved or anything like that. But what a pleasure it was, after the Shabbos meal, to go back to the zal, sit with a sefer in my hand, and watch the chassidim—the niggun with which they davened. I merited to see genuine chassidim who had been guided. One of them was Reb Shalom Shirom. Have you heard of him? Shalom Shirom? A Yemenite Jew. Yes, he was a chossid. Every day, every day. There were still Arab houses in a few places, so he would shut himself in one of those rooms. His name was Shalom Shirom. Yes, that’s what they called him. I didn’t know him. Now, let’s go back. I just want to ask one more thing. Was that the first time you wrote to the Rebbe? No. I had written while I was still in Kfar Haroeh. Then tell us a little about that. Certainly. I wrote from Kfar Haroeh that I wanted to transfer to a yeshivah where they learned all day. But at the agricultural yeshivah they told me that wasn’t their approach. Instead, I should finish my studies there and then go to a hesder yeshivah, an advanced yeshivah. So I asked the Rebbe: I want to go to a yeshivah where they learn

24:11 Speaker 2 all day. Which yeshivah should I go to? And I asked for a brachah. And... if I’m not mistaken, I think I wrote in French. The Rebbe answered me in Hebrew and wrote at the bottom, “I’m answering in the Holy Tongue because in my correspondence I don’t write in French, but I understand it.” Yes. It was a long letter, in which he wrote that I should go to yeshivah and that I shouldn’t say I would make up later for the Torah studies I had missed. If only, in the future, what we learn will be enough for that day! How could we also make up for the past? From that, the Rebbe hinted to me—he made me understand how urgent it was: right away, now. You can’t say, “I’ll go later.” There’s no such thing. If only you’ll manage what you need to do on that later day! And you still want to make up for what you missed? That was the first thing. The second thing was that I had asked which yeshivah to go to. So the Rebbe hinted to me that in this generation one should begin learning Chassidus. Yes. That’s it. Ah, afterward—

25:35 Speaker 4 The Rebbe didn’t answer directly which yeshivah to go to.

25:37 Speaker 2 No, no.

25:38 Speaker 4 Yes.

25:39 Speaker 2 And then I understood.

25:40 Speaker 4 You understood.

25:41 Speaker 2 And—

25:41 Speaker 4 He counted on you to understand.

25:42 Speaker 2 The outcome is well known. After I went to the yeshivah, they took Rabbi Moshe Schneerson and expelled him. They told him, “You’re taking our best boys and sending them to Chabad,” when in fact he hadn’t done that deliberately. He hadn’t done anything. It was entirely my own decision. He also wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe blessed him. In fact, something good came of it, because he became the director in Zarnuga[?], in Rechovot, and—

26:09 Speaker 4 He was afraid it would hurt his livelihood, because, well—

26:12 Speaker 2 Yes, the position there was part-time, as I understand it.

26:16 Speaker 4 Mm-hm.

26:16 Speaker 2 It wasn’t a full-time position. He only taught a class. He actually worked in agriculture.

26:22 Speaker 4 Mm-hm.

26:23 Speaker 2 I remember going out to the field to find him. Yes, he would be plowing and working, and I would go to consult him. Yes, in my innocence, I was like that about everything in serving Hashem. Well, now, if you’ll allow me, I’ll return—

26:39 Speaker 4 Yes.

26:39 Speaker 2 To the story of Agadir[?], because it’s very—

26:41 Speaker 4 [unclear] It’s very important.

26:42 Speaker 2 What happened is very important.

26:45 Speaker 4 Yes.

26:45 Speaker 2 The young man in the group who influenced us was named Yitzchak Ohayon. He must be about eighty-six today, something like that, Baruch Hashem. Well, something happened. The earthquake—

27:03 Speaker 4 Could you give us a little more background? What do you mean by the group that influenced you? Had a group of you boys come together?

27:08 Speaker 2 He would bring us together. I mean, we didn’t have direct contact with Rabbi Chaikin.

27:12 Speaker 4 Mm-hm.

27:12 Speaker 2 Maybe we didn’t have a common language with him; I don’t know the reason. But he did. He was very close to Rabbi Chaikin, very close.

27:20 Speaker 4 Mm-hm.

27:20 Speaker 2 And he became very involved. He also set an example for us: he went to school, just as we did, wearing a head covering, and... after Shabbos and so on. So his example—

27:33 Speaker 4 So he was the example.

27:34 Speaker 2 Exactly. I also remember him gathering us together as boys. The first time I remember him doing that, there was a Purim farbrengen. It was the first time I’d seen anything like it, with kings and everything. Yes. Well, and—

27:54 Speaker 4 What do you mean, at that farbrengen? Who led it? Rabbi Chaikin?

27:57 Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, no.

27:57 Speaker 4 He himself?

27:59 Speaker 2 No, no. Our only connection was with the older boy.

28:01 Speaker 4 So Yitzchak Ohayon was the one who farbrenged with you?

28:04 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. He was the one who looked after our group.

28:06 Speaker 4 I see.

28:08 Speaker 2 Well, here’s what happened. There was an earthquake. He and his family survived, but they had to be pulled out from beneath the rubble of their house. And what happened to him was like what happened to some people during the Holocaust: he lost his faith. I certainly don’t want to judge him, G-d forbid. But when I went to Israel, he asked me to keep in touch with him. We’d send letters through France to a certain place; he would receive them and write back. He said to me, “Until now I’ve strengthened you. Now you’re in Tomchei Temimim; you strengthen me and tell me about it.” So I would write to him. Then, after the earthquake, I started writing to him and no one answered. I began to worry. Maybe, G-d forbid, something had happened to him. Eventually I met his uncle, of blessed memory, who had lost his wife and children. He never found them. Until the day he died, he was deeply pained that he hadn’t found them so they could receive a Jewish burial. I asked him, “Tell me, do you know Yitzchak Ohayon?” “Of course.” “Tell me, how is he? Why doesn’t he answer me?” He said, “Oh, you want to know why? Oy, oy, oy.” I took it very, very hard. As a boy, I had no way to deal with something like that.

29:28 Speaker 4 He had been your role model.

29:30 Speaker 2 He was our role model. Suddenly, him? How could I...? What was I supposed to do with that? So at my first yechidus, when I came to the Rebbe, one of the things I wrote about was this. First of all, I brought a letter from Ohayon in French and showed it to the Rebbe at the yechidus.

29:48 Speaker 4 From Ohayon.

29:50 Speaker 2 Yes.

29:50 Speaker 4 A letter from years earlier.

29:51 Speaker 2 To me.

29:51 Speaker 4 From years earlier.

29:51 Speaker 2 Yes, that he had written.

29:52 Speaker 4 Years before that.

29:53 Speaker 2 Yes. And I wrote to the Rebbe on my note what had happened to him and how heavily it weighed on me. I didn’t know how to deal with it, and so on. The Rebbe said to me, “Yes, he used to write to me; we corresponded.” And... I don’t remember his exact words, but he said that he held Yitzchak in very high regard—something like that. And he put me so much at ease, as if I had nothing to worry about. I came out of there with a feeling that he would come back. Something like that. That was the feeling.

30:31 Speaker 4 In other words, the Rebbe was saying to you, “Yes, he corresponded with me too, in the past.”

30:36 Speaker 2 Something like that.

30:37 Speaker 4 And I—

30:38 Speaker 2 He gave me the feeling—

30:39 Speaker 4 “And I know he’ll come back.”

30:40 Speaker 2 I can’t explain how I came out of that yechidus. Like everyone else, I came out changed, satisfied and happy. I felt that way about this matter too. How did the Rebbe do it? I don’t know exactly what he said. I only know one thing: I came out confident that it would be all right. I could continue on my path, and it would be all right.

31:00 Speaker 4 That burden you felt over his having left—it was lifted.

31:03 Speaker 2 And here’s what happened. Years later, there was—you’ll remind me—the dedication of a Sefer Torah from Casablanca.

31:15 Speaker 4 Yes, 5752.

31:16 Speaker 2 5752. And there was, ah—

31:19 Speaker 4 The three shluchim—

31:20 Speaker 2 Raskin, Raskin from Casablanca.

31:22 Speaker 4 Matusof[?].

31:23 Speaker 2 I was at the Kinus Hashluchim, and suddenly I saw Rabbi Chaikin with someone beside him—a modern-looking man, clean-shaven, wearing a leather jacket. He said, “Meet each other.” I looked at the man. I didn’t know him.

31:41 Speaker 4 You didn’t recognize him.

31:42 Speaker 2 He looked at me and didn’t recognize me either. We hadn’t seen each other for maybe thirty years. Eventually I tried to get him talking. Suddenly he just smiled, or something like that. I said, “Yitzchak!”

31:54 Speaker 4 Wow.

31:55 Speaker 2 Oh. And then something clicked for me. Listen to what my reaction was. It was absolutely astonishing. I could have—I don’t know—kissed him or hugged him. I don’t know. But this was my reaction: I became very serious and said to Yitzchak, “Listen, you brought us closer. If the path you brought us onto isn’t good, why did you lead me—and everyone I brought closer—onto it? And if it is a good path, what about you? It doesn’t add up.” He’s a very emotional person. He took it so hard that he had no answer. And just then, the hakafos began inside 770. They were dancing in the center with the new Sefer Torah, and Rabbi Chaikin signaled to me, “Let’s bring him into the inner circle,” because we could see he was becoming deeply emotional. I don’t know what those words I said did to him.

33:01 Speaker 5 They took hold of him.

33:02 Speaker 2 And I don’t know whether what I did was right. I don’t know; it’s just what came out of me. Anyway, we went inside. He took the Sefer Torah and danced, and the man broke down crying. Then people started wondering what was going on. We quickly took him aside somewhere, sat down on a bench, and he began pouring out his story. He had owned hotels. He had been very wealthy, and then he began losing his assets at a terrible rate. Because, as we know about businessmen—and this is my own addition—they’re never content with what they have. They invest more, because apparently that’s how it works.

33:46 Speaker 5 “One who loves money will never have enough money.”

33:49 Speaker 2 Maybe, but maybe if they don’t keep moving forward, they’ll go downhill. So whenever an opportunity comes up, they buy; here there may be a profit, there a loss, and it balances out. Anyway, he said he understood that Heaven was hinting something to him. Things were deteriorating, and he had large debts to the banks. After all, what do businessmen do? They borrow from the bank. It’s worth paying the interest to buy some business that will—

34:19 Speaker 5 Make more money.

34:20 Speaker 2 Make money, yes—something at auction or at a low price, and so on. Anyway, he said he was now going upstairs for the wealthy donors’ yechidus. Apparently he had given a million to one of the Rebbe’s institutions, and he said to me, “Look—”

34:42 Speaker 5 He wouldn’t have had to give a million. A hundred thousand dollars would have been enough.

34:45 Speaker 2 I don’t know. I don’t know what he gave.

34:46 Speaker 5 A million in today’s money—a hundred thousand dollars.

34:48 Speaker 2 Maybe. Anyway, he told me, “Look, I started coming back home.” I understand. Mind you, when he went back to his house to look for what was left after the earthquake, he found the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch and Likkutei Torah there. They were lying there with all the books, covered in sand—everything was sand. And then... No, that was after the earthquake. No, no, no, he didn’t go back to... No, after the earthquake he was living somewhere else. All his books were covered in sand, and among them was a plastic bag containing Likkutei Torah and the other book. He sat up the whole night and began returning to those things, coming back home—learning Likkutei Torah and so on. In the morning his wife asked him, “Why didn’t you sleep last night? Worries about the business?” He said, “No, I’m beginning to do teshuvah. I’m coming back.” Of course, there was more to the story with his wife, who wasn’t so keen on it. Rabbi Chaikin was involved; they had to build a special mikveh, and so on and so forth. Anyway, we won’t go into the whole subject. So then he told me, “Listen, right after my yechidus with the Rebbe, I’m going straight back to Morocco. I’ll stay in touch with you, because in Tammuz we’ll hold a farbrengen, and you and Rabbi Chaikin will be part of the organization that will make one of the hotels a Chabad House.”

36:30 Speaker 6 He was in—

36:31 Speaker 2 In Agadir. And that’s what happened. I was stunned. At the time, Morocco wasn’t as accessible as it is today. Morocco? How was I going to get there? He said, “Don’t worry. You can get into Morocco even with an Israeli passport, and you’ll have a special visa. I’ll send you El Al tickets to Paris, and from Paris you’ll take a Moroccan plane—it’s called Air Maroc—and you’ll get there.” And that’s what happened. We held a farbrengen, and he brought the cook from Beis Rivkah in Casablanca to cook, so that everything would be pareve. We didn’t want to eat meat, even though it was glatt—that’s what Rabbi Chaikin said. Yes, that’s how it was.

37:14 Speaker 6 So you went to Agadir then, and came back in the early nineties?

37:20 Speaker 2 Yes, we visited. I haven’t been back since. Yes, yes.

37:25 Speaker 6 All right, let’s go back to the years when you were with Sholom Chaim—

37:28 Speaker 2 One second, let me finish this story. We stayed in touch with him, and every so often I’d speak with him on the phone. Until one day—and here it’s worth mentioning a dream about the Rebbe, something extraordinary, extraordinary—he called me. He said, “I know there’s no way you can help me financially, but prayers—you can pray.” He was in debt. He was afraid that, G-d forbid, they would put him in prison or something. That wouldn’t solve the problem. How would he pay from prison? It was an Arab country. Who would save him? It was painful, very, very painful. Rabbi Chaikin knew about it, and so did I. We kept in touch, asking how he was doing. And then one night I dreamed that I was accompanying a group of people I didn’t know, along with Yitzchak, to the wealthy donors’ yechidus with the Rebbe. And Yitzchak suddenly fell to the floor with a thud. The Rebbe got up from his place, reached out both hands to Yitzchak, and lifted him up. That was the dream. So I called him and told him, “This is the dream I had.”

38:51 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

38:52 Speaker 2 He was very happy. He said, “If so—”

38:55 Speaker 6 “The Rebbe is lifting me up.”

38:56 Speaker 2 Yes. And that’s what happened. Toward evening, when he thought, “That’s it, they’re coming to take me away,” some solution came about.

39:08 Speaker 6 They reached an arrangement.

39:10 Speaker 2 It was something I’d rather not—

39:12 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

39:12 Speaker 2 Go into too much detail about.

39:15 Speaker 6 Wow.

39:15 Speaker 2 That’s it. Apparently he had only one hotel left, and he was managing it himself.

39:20 Speaker 6 Clearly, the Rebbe lifted him up.

39:22 Speaker 2 Apparently he had been cheated, and all the hotels were gone. Anyway.

39:28 Speaker 6 Because “none of them will be cast away.”

39:30 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem. Yes, yes, yes.

39:32 Speaker 6 Let’s go back to the years when you were with Sholom Chaim. 5718, 5719, 5720—

39:35 Speaker 2 5720.

39:37 Speaker 6 Until?

39:38 Speaker 2 Until 5723.

39:41 Speaker 6 Oh, that many years? You were in Kfar Chabad for five years?

39:44 Speaker 2 In Lod.

39:45 Speaker 6 In Lod. Oh, right—before Kfar Chabad, before that, they went to Lod.

39:48 Speaker 2 Of course.

39:48 Speaker 6 That was still in the orchard.

39:49 Speaker 2 Still.

39:50 Speaker 6 [unclear]. After the orchard.

39:52 Speaker 2 Straight to Bazal.

39:54 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

39:54 Speaker 2 Bazal, which was at—

39:55 Speaker 6 Yes.

39:56 Speaker 2 At the bend by—

39:58 Speaker 6 Yes, where it is today, actually.

39:59 Speaker 2 [unclear].

40:01 Speaker 6 Yes.

40:03 Speaker 2 Yes.

40:04 Speaker 6 And did you write to the Rebbe a lot?

40:06 Speaker 2 Well, yes—

40:07 Speaker 6 Was there ongoing contact with the Rebbe?

40:08 Speaker 2 We were in touch all the time. And this is what happened. I knew I wanted to merit being part of the group. The group before us had gone and hadn’t come back, and Shazar had guaranteed them. It was clear to me that for my group there wouldn’t be... there wouldn’t be a group. I knew that. I prepared for several years. I would bring books into the yeshivah and get a few pennies, take turns on duty here and there. What didn’t I do to save penny by penny? All so I could travel to the Rebbe, travel to the Rebbe. But I was obligated to serve in the army—what was I to do? So I wrote letters to the army saying I supported my parents. Of course, it’s a long story; we won’t go into it. At first they didn’t grant my request. I asked for shortened service, and they said no. “You need to support your parents? No problem. Enlist, and we’ll support your parents.” Of course I said no, because I also wanted to learn; I hadn’t finished yet. It wasn’t simple, but boruch Hashem, I merited being transferred, and I was in combat training, in the armored infantry. Interestingly, Rabbi Dovid Kretz—may he be distinguished for long life—was there with me.

41:39 Speaker 6 Oh.

41:40 Speaker 2 We were there, and neither of us knew the other’s reason. In the end, on Yud Shvat, we both found ourselves there. During our service neither of us revealed his secret to the other, because we weren’t in the same unit. We went through very difficult basic training in the second stage, and then, as soon as we finished... Yes, it was Chanukah. Right afterward, I had to get a passport and a visa. Back then, of course, there was no direct flight to the United States. We went from one travel agent to another looking for a ticket, because it cost almost seven months’ wages. Not like today. Anyway, in the end I got to the Rebbe. Yes, in 5725.

42:40 Speaker 6 5725. When?

42:43 Speaker 2 For Yud Shvat.

42:45 Speaker 6 You arrived for Yud Shvat 5725.

42:47 Speaker 2 Yes.

42:47 Speaker 6 And did you have friends who had already traveled at the beginning of the year, who had sorted things out with the army?

42:51 Speaker 2 No.

42:51 Speaker 6 Or did no one travel that year?

42:52 Speaker 2 There were two, yes. There was Yosef Elcharar, and apparently they had exemptions.

42:59 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

43:00 Speaker 2 And—may he be distinguished for long life—and Shlomo Chana z"l was there too. There were four of us altogether. We arrived with so little coordination, with nothing arranged, that they complained to Rabbi Wolf a"h: “Why did you send us people without coordinating? What’s this?” He said, “They didn’t even ask me.” We didn’t know what coordination meant. What coordination? This wasn’t a group. Well, that’s how it was. And here, baruch Hashem, we merited many, many revelations—

43:32 Speaker 6 Wait, you arrived for Yud Shvat 5725.

43:35 Speaker 2 Twenty-five.

43:36 Speaker 6 When did you first see the Rebbe?

43:40 Speaker 2 Early in the morning, one of the first mornings after I arrived, yes.

43:45 Speaker 6 Did you say Shehecheyanu?

43:47 Speaker 2 I don’t remember. Ah, I think I had an aliyah to the Torah and then said Hagomel. Oy, I was so frightened and trembling. I remember I had already said it before Kaddish, and the Rebbe was standing there. It was overwhelming.

44:05 Speaker 6 The Rebbe actually had to say Kaddish.

44:07 Speaker 2 He led the davening, he led the davening—

44:09 Speaker 6 No, it was a full year.

44:10 Speaker 2 For his mother, yes.

44:11 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

44:12 Speaker 2 We merited a whole year of the Rebbe leading all the davening. And there’s another interesting thing that’s well known. Each of the bochurim would bring a Tehillim, right, and put it on the shtender. Before the Rebbe would say Tehillim, he would daven alone in his room. He would come out only for Borchu, Kedushah, and the Torah reading.

44:36 Speaker 6 He was also the chazzan in 5708.

44:39 Speaker 2 Sorry, I’m mistaken. Yes, yes, that’s right.

44:41 Speaker 6 That was afterward. Years later.

44:42 Speaker 2 Yes, years later. Right, right. So the Rebbe would first look at the name. Whose was it? Who had put it there?

44:48 Speaker 6 Who had authorized it?

44:49 Speaker 2 That matters. Every detail mattered to the Rebbe.

44:51 Speaker 6 Right.

44:52 Speaker 2 Every single thing, every detail. Well, that’s it. Here I’ll tell you a few things I saw.

45:00 Speaker 6 Wait, you left your Tehillim there, and the Rebbe looked at your name.

45:03 Speaker 2 Yes. I managed to put that Tehillim there just once, and I have it to this day. My children took it to their chuppahs and so on. To exams—to exams.

45:14 Speaker 6 Wait, but I want to hear a little about what it was like to arrive and see the Rebbe after so many years of looking forward to it and waiting. Was there a Yud Shvat farbrengen? There was.

45:27 Speaker 2 There was, there were farbrengens. All right, slowly, slowly. Let’s see how things unfold.

45:34 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

45:34 Speaker 2 Well, that’s it. I’ll tell you something I saw that made a great impression on me as a young bochur. The Rebbe was going to go out for mayim shelanu before Pesach, and there were just a few of us bochurim. Not like today. We stood on the other side of the fence, with the area of the sukkah in front of us, right?

46:02 Speaker 6 Yes.

46:02 Speaker 2 There was also a faucet above some sort of well down below, and the Rebbe was coming. They would fill a cup from the faucet and then pour it into a glass vessel, a large one as far as I remember. And here’s what happened. It had rained, and the area from the steps to the faucet was full of water. I immediately started thinking: He’s about to come out—how will he walk through the water? While I was wondering, and everyone was waiting for him to come out, suddenly two fellows arrived with a wide plank and laid it diagonally from the steps to the faucet. Well.

46:52 Speaker 6 In other words, the faucet was near the Rebbe’s private sukkah, the small sukkah.

46:56 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, exactly.

46:56 Speaker 6 They laid it diagonally so the Rebbe wouldn’t have to walk through the water on the steps.

47:00 Speaker 2 Well, suddenly I asked myself, wait, do they expect the Rebbe to walk on that plank? Before I could finish the thought, the Rebbe came out. The Rebbe took a look. First of all, the Rebbe would always take in everyone there; in a second he had seen them all and surveyed the situation. Where’s the faucet? Where’s everything? He started walking on the plank with both arms—

47:21 Speaker 6 Out in the air.

47:22 Speaker 2 Out in the air, like they do when—

47:25 Speaker 6 Walking on a w-wire—

47:26 Speaker 2 In a circus, in a circus, when they walk on a wire.

47:28 Speaker 6 With both arms stretched out to the sides.

47:29 Speaker 2 Both arms stretched out to the sides, to—he started like this—

47:32 Speaker 6 As though to keep his balance.

47:33 Speaker 2 His balance. I’ll never forget that sight. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

47:39 Speaker 6 The Rebbe walked along that diagonally placed plank.

47:41 Speaker 2 Along the plank, like this.

47:41 Speaker 6 With his arms, his arms stretched out to the sides.

47:43 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly.

47:45 Speaker 6 When he got to the faucet, did he step off the plank?

47:47 Speaker 2 Well, of course, of course. Yes, yes. That’s it, there’s always some little moment that... Yes. Well, there was another interesting episode. Back then, when the Rebbe would travel to the Ohel, he would come to the mikveh at the corner of Eastern Parkway.

48:06 Speaker 6 Eastern, the mikveh.

48:07 Speaker 2 And, uh—

48:08 Speaker 6 And Brooklyn.

48:09 Speaker 2 And Brooklyn. Exactly. A small mikveh.

48:11 Speaker 6 On the side of 749.

48:13 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

48:14 Speaker 6 A little before the [unclear].[unclear]

48:15 Speaker 2 It goes along a sort of route, a long room like that.

48:19 Speaker 6 Yes, a courtyard, and then—

48:20 Speaker 2 Then the mikveh pool is on the right. Right by the entrance there’s a heater with towels and so on. Just as we were getting dressed, suddenly the Rebbe walked in. Oy, imagine that—you see someone in an undershirt and so on.

48:38 Speaker 6 Nobody had announced that the Rebbe was coming. Suddenly the Rebbe appeared.

48:40 Speaker 2 Suddenly the Rebbe appeared, and he deliberately walked all the way to the far end so as not to embarrass us. We all fled inside, to where the heater was, where the boiler was. We fled there, and we listened and heard the dip—the—the—

48:57 Speaker 6 Immersions.

48:58 Speaker 2 The immersions, and we listened, listened to that... And here’s what turned out: someone had been in the mikveh water already, making lots of immersions. Splash, splash, splash, splash. When he came out, poor fellow, he was without his glasses. He told us: he looked and thought, “Wow, it’s the Rebbe.” Oy, oy, oy, oy. He started running. He couldn’t see where everyone was. He slipped, fell, got up. We took him, covered him with a towel, and brought him over by the heater. After that incident, as far as I know, the Rebbe didn’t come there unexpectedly anymore; he started going to another mikveh.

49:42 Speaker 6 The mikveh on Union.

49:43 Speaker 2 Yes.

49:43 Speaker 6 Or was that before?

49:44 Speaker 2 No, no, farther, farther.

49:46 Speaker 6 Farther away.

49:47 Speaker 2 Yes.

49:49 Speaker 6 Or he would give notice that he was coming to the mikveh, and they would prepare it for him.

49:52 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. In any case, that’s another thing I remember.

49:56 Speaker 6 Where did the Rebbe daven—upstairs in the zal?

49:59 Speaker 2 In the small zal, all the time.

50:04 Speaker 6 When, uh, did you first receive a response from the Rebbe about your arrival? Did you write to the Rebbe that you’d arrived?

50:10 Speaker 2 Of course. There were several occasions, several things.

50:13 Speaker 6 What happened?

50:15 Speaker 2 Well, first of all, the zal downstairs was so small. Everyone saw everyone else. There were baalei batim there, and they knew all the bochurim. It wasn’t like today. In short, my place happened to be high up, and the tiers weren’t set up in advance. We had to drag tables ourselves and put benches on them. The bench we stood on had one leg on a table and one leg in the air, and we stood up there. Once that bench slipped, and we all fell down like a guillotine. You could see only our heads. The Rebbe stopped and looked at us until they pulled us back up. It was dangerous. Yes, there were several incidents that were truly wondrous miracles. Yes. And once I had a miracle too. It was Pesach, on Seder night. The Rebbe came out, apparently on the second night. If I’m not mistaken, he came out to say a maamar. And then many of the fellows—

51:27 Speaker 6 After the—after the meal upstairs.

51:29 Speaker 2 Yes.

51:30 Speaker 6 Yes, it was on the second night, after the meal upstairs. He came to say—

51:32 Speaker 2 And many of the bochurim were with their parents. No, no—

51:37 Speaker 6 A maamar explaining the Haggadah, right?

51:38 Speaker 2 And they hadn’t—no, no, no—they hadn’t dragged all the tables into place. So the spot I thought of as the middle suddenly turned out to be the edge, with a drop of two tiers of tables below me. Without noticing, some fellows from the table that wasn’t there came into our row and gave a push. Whoosh—I flew like a missile.

52:03 Speaker 6 From the top all the way to the back.

52:04 Speaker 2 All the way down. To this day I have a disc problem. I don’t want to say where it came from; I don’t know. I only know that I landed on my back and couldn’t breathe. By Hashem’s kindness, I was alive. I hadn’t broken any bones—I don’t know how. Yes, wondrous miracles. Yes. Yes. Well, there was another interesting thing, on Simchas Torah 5748. But that was later, not in that same year. As those who were there know—ah, what a privilege. The Rebbe, holding a small Sefer Torah, began... He looked at each person and held the Sefer Torah out toward him—

52:48 Speaker 6 Held it out to him in the air.

52:49 Speaker 2 Held it out to him in the air like this. To each one, each one, each one, each one, every single one. Oy, what tremendous joy there was there. I looked over at the Rebbe’s place. Rabbi Chodakov was standing there, and Rabbi... all the secretaries were there. And the Rebbe gestured with both hands by his cheek, as though sleeping—

53:15 Speaker 6 As though asleep.

53:16 Speaker 2 As if that wasn’t enough. He made a motion like this, and the crowd pressed in even harder—harder and harder. Then suddenly a whole wave of people fell, heads down and feet up, several rows deep. Oh, it was a miracle that nothing happened. They just got back up; nothing happened. I was down below, in some kind of box, and I saw the whole thing. They’d put a French-speaking visitor next to me so I could explain everything to him. He saw it coming and said, “Listen, people’s lives are in danger here.” I told him, “Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry.” When he saw that whole mountain of people falling, he ran off. I looked around—where is he? Where is he? Gone. He’d fled outside. So clearly, it wasn’t simple. No, it wasn’t simple. Now, another interesting story I remember—I don’t recall whether it was in 5725 or 5726. On Seder night, we bochurim were at 646, or something like that. Downstairs was where they used to eat breakfast. For Pesach, there was this righteous woman there who got us bochurim working: cleaning, cleaning, cleaning for Pesach.

54:42 Speaker 6 Mussia.

54:42 Speaker 2 Mussia. In the end, the bochurim held their Seder there, each with his own Seder plate, and waited for the Rebbe to come. He would always have something to point out, or he would give a blessing, look at each person—and then we’d begin the Seder. Now, what does a bochur do? He has no family there; he’s on his own. He finishes the Seder in almost an hour, finishes everything, and runs to 770. The Rebbe is upstairs. Am I going to go to sleep? We wait—maybe he’ll come out, maybe something will happen. And then came the surprise. Suddenly Rabbi Groner arrived, looked into the little hall. There were very few of us, maybe ten bochurim. He looked at us and said, “Fellows, come.” He took us up the stairs to the upper floor and opened the door with no warning. Suddenly I found myself next to the Rebbe—about ten centimeters away. He spread the other bochurim along the length of the room, behind all the guests, and I saw what everyone knows: at the head of the table was the Frierdiker Rebbe’s chair. The Rashag sat on the right, and the Rebbe sat on the left. The Rebbe had his own Haggadah, the one he had published, and from time to time he would look into it. Well, just as we arrived, the Rebbe was eating the maror. Oy, oy, oy. To see the amount of maror the Rebbe had, and how red he became—it was something terrible to see. Terrible, terrible. What an amount!

56:28 Speaker 6 A large amount.

56:28 Speaker 2 A large amount. And we know the Rebbe would crumble it up. Some of the horseradish was ground, and some was crumbled. Well, afterward we had the privilege of seeing the rest of the Seder.

56:47 Speaker 6 Shulchan Orech, everything.

56:49 Speaker 2 Yes. And then came the surprise. They brought the gefilte fish, just a piece of gefilte fish. I can still picture the Rebbe’s hands, how he did this. He started taking salt and sprinkling it over the fish. He covered the whole thing in salt, like snow. Today we—

57:19 Speaker 6 Describe it, because they can’t see. You’re actually showing how the Rebbe took a handful of salt in his whole hand and sprinkled that much over the entire piece—

57:26 Speaker 2 No, he took some several times. Once wasn’t enough. He sprinkled and sprinkled, then sat and ate it. Some fellows later tried it themselves at home, or wherever, and were sick to their stomachs. It’s impossible. When they asked the Rebbe, he said, “No, I like salt.” Well, there are things—who can understand?

57:45 Speaker 6 Things we have no understanding of, like—

57:47 Speaker 2 Yes. We saw another interesting thing, though only afterward was it explained to me what it was. They brought out a silver bowl, very, very shiny, and you could see it was an antique. What was this bowl? Everyone took just one spoonful of soup from it, no more. Then they brought the regular soup tureen, and everyone took as much as they wanted. It turned out that this was the Alter Rebbe’s soup tureen.

58:26 Speaker 6 The Alter Rebbe’s silver soup bowl.

58:28 Speaker 2 The Alter Rebbe’s. Yes, its rim was a little rough—apparently from the years, I don’t know. They say there was also—but I didn’t see it there—the Alter Rebbe’s kiddush cup. They say there was even some wine left in it from a Havdalah he had made, only later it was washed out. Those are rumors; I didn’t see it myself.

58:58 Speaker 6 But you did see the bowl.

59:00 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes.

59:02 Speaker 6 When was the yechidus you told us about, when you went in for your birthday?

59:08 Speaker 2 The first yechidus.

59:09 Speaker 6 When was that? Right after you arrived, on Yud Shvat?

59:12 Speaker 2 Probably around my birthday, approaching 1 Menachem Av, so—

59:18 Speaker 6 Oh, that was a long time after you arrived.

59:20 Speaker 2 Apparently. Yes, yes.

59:21 Speaker 6 Not right after you arrived.

59:22 Speaker 2 As far as I remember, no.

59:24 Speaker 6 So the first farbrengen was Yud Shvat, and—

59:27 Speaker 2 Yes. Now, you asked me about the attention the bochurim received. That happened when we were about to fly back. We had been with the Rebbe for about a year and a half. Three of us decided to travel together. Then someone—I don’t remember who—said, “Listen, there’s Kiddush Levanah. You should stand near the Rebbe, because he’ll say ‘Shalom Aleichem’ to each of you.” That was very interesting. Well, I heard it, the second fellow heard it; the third apparently didn’t know or wasn’t there. The Rebbe said “Shalom Aleichem” to me, and he said “Shalom Aleichem” to the second one too. Then he started looking for the third, but he wasn’t there. Well, now what? Since I was traveling, we presented a bottle of—

1:00:36 Speaker 7 Mashke.

1:00:37 Speaker 2 Mashke.

1:00:37 Speaker 7 At the farbrengen.

1:00:38 Speaker 2 Yes, between one sicha and the next.

1:00:40 Speaker 7 On Shabbos.

1:00:41 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Then the Rebbe, as was his custom, took some of the mashke, poured it into his special cup, and poured it back into the bottle. After that he gave you a “L’chaim,” and you went back to continue the farbrengen in your place, and so on. That’s what he did for me. He did the same for the second fellow. Then the third fellow, the one who hadn’t been there, approached afterward, without saying a word. The Rebbe asked him, “Will you distribute it?” Poor fellow, he was [unclear], with the Rebbe looking at him. “Will you distribute it?” The Rebbe asked three or four times, and he didn’t answer. It was as if the Rebbe was saying, “Well, you won’t distribute it, yet you insist.” All right, he gave him a “L’chaim.” So he took the l’chaim. That fellow became frantic. He said, “Wait, wait, wait—I haven’t booked a ticket together with you. You have assurances: the Rebbe has just blessed you. Now I’ll have to turn somersaults to find a ticket in Manhattan so I can travel with you at the last minute.” Yes, it was an airline that flew to Luxembourg on a propeller plane, reached Greenland, and stopped there. What didn’t we do to make it cheaper? A propeller plane! Anyway, the second fellow and I—Sunday came, and that was it. We took our bundles, traveled to the airport, and boarded the flight. We were sitting there at the very last minute, before they closed the doors, when the third fellow arrived, drenched in sweat. He sat down and signaled to us that he’d come over after the plane took off. Okay, the plane took off. He came over and said, “I know why the Rebbe asked, ‘Will you distribute it?’ I got back from Manhattan late with my ticket, and the taxi was waiting for me. I went into my room, threw everything into the suitcase—boom!—and ran back to the taxi. I forgot the mashke.”

1:02:47 Speaker 7 Wow.

1:02:50 Speaker 2 He forgot the mashke. The Rebbe saw that.

1:02:56 Speaker 7 Wow! [unclear] Let’s go back to the yechidus for a moment. How did you prepare for it, and what was it like going in?

1:03:07 Speaker 2 Oy, oy, oy. The first time—that was something.

1:03:11 Speaker 7 Tell us.

1:03:12 Speaker 2 The bochurim taught me what I had to do. First of all, fast.

1:03:16 Speaker 7 When you say “the bochurim,” who were they? Do you remember?

1:03:18 Speaker 2 Well, that group of—no, I don’t remember names. It was a long time ago. Maybe they were from there, maybe some had come earlier, maybe later. Mostly Israelis. We were closer because we farbrenged together. All right: fast all day. Go to the mikveh three times. We also bought something to put inside. And Tehillim, Tehillim, Tehillim, until we had the privilege of going in. So much preparation. The fellows went to the place on Fourth Avenue [?] for supper and brought a plate for me too. They knew I’d come out later and see them. Yes. No, we didn’t have their way of thinking. They’d go to—

1:04:07 Speaker 7 Buy it.

1:04:08 Speaker 2 Buy it. And where were their bochurim? Yes, yes. That’s it.

1:04:17 Speaker 7 What did you write? Aside from what you told us about Yitzchak Ohayon, did you write about yourself, or...?

1:04:24 Speaker 2 I brought three mezuzos I’d written—my first ones.

1:04:29 Speaker 7 Oh, so you were already writing STaM then?

1:04:31 Speaker 2 Yes, I brought them to the Rebbe. I don’t know what was going through my head—whether I meant to give them to him, or just have him look at them and bless them. I don’t know. In all innocence, the Rebbe looked at them and also accepted Ohayon’s letter. Then he told me—probably so as not to hold everyone up—“I’ll take them home, and tomorrow I’ll give you an answer.”

1:04:55 Speaker 7 About the mezuzos.

1:04:55 Speaker 2 The mezuzos.

1:04:57 Speaker 7 “I’ll take them home and return them tomorrow.”

1:04:59 Speaker 2 Yes. The next day he returned them through Rabbi Groner or Binyamin Klein, together with Yitzchak’s letter in French.

1:05:13 Speaker 7 What did he say about the mezuzos?

1:05:15 Speaker 2 He didn’t say anything, nothing. For me, what mattered was the blessing.

1:05:19 Speaker 7 Wait, what else did the Rebbe say? During the yechidus itself, besides what Rabbi Yitzchak said about you, was there a blessing or something?

1:05:29 Speaker 2 I have it written down somewhere. Well, it was short and to the point. Very short. What I remember is that the Rebbe spoke to me and kept raising his holy head to see whether I understood what he was saying. Then I noticed something that, to this day, I don’t understand: in the white of his eye, there were these blue lines, something textured, like skin. I don’t know. It really startled me. I still don’t know how to explain it. Well.

1:06:06 Speaker 7 Did the Rebbe speak in Hebrew?

1:06:08 Speaker 2 In Hebrew. But at the farbrengens, especially the ones over the years...

1:06:13 Speaker 7 We’ll get to those shortly.

1:06:14 Speaker 2 I used to write at the top, “I understand Hebrew.” Once, he paid no attention to that and said to me, “Du farshteyst doch Yiddish”—“You do understand Yiddish.” And there, you can’t say anything; the words just don’t come. Then it was as though he read my mind: Yes, I know Yiddish, but what if I miss a word and don’t understand properly? So, I don’t know.

1:06:34 Speaker 7 He went back to Hebrew. In the first yechidus, he spoke in Hebrew and gave a blessing.

1:06:37 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes.

1:06:39 Speaker 7 And before you returned to Israel, did you go in for yechidus again?

1:06:42 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:06:44 Speaker 7 We’ll get to that in a moment. Just a little more about Tishrei first. We’re in the month of Tishrei, after all. What do you remember from Tishrei? Anything special—the shofar blowing, the march, the box?

1:06:55 Speaker 2 Well, I remember the walks. Once we walked all the way to Borough Park, and once we walked—this was between Shavuos and Sukkos, Pesach. Yes. Once we walked all the way to Williamsburg.

1:07:10 Speaker 7 The procession. I’m asking about things connected with the Rebbe—the farbrengens, the shofar blowing, things you saw firsthand.

1:07:15 Speaker 2 Certainly. Yes. I wasn’t the type to push my way in and go to the laundry room. That was hard for me. I’m a bit of a Yekke. I would sit there, though, and see the Rebbe spread his tallis over all three large, tied bundles, and I could hear the Rebbe crying.

1:07:38 Speaker 7 Yes, you could hear him crying during the shofar blowing.

1:07:39 Speaker 2 Yes. Oh, it was so quiet, utterly still. It was something tremendous. Another thing that has stayed in my memory was after Yom Kippur, when he would climb onto the—

1:07:52 Speaker 7 Chair.

1:07:53 Speaker 2 Chair, and—and he truly had the face of an angel.

1:07:57 Speaker 7 During the march.

1:07:58 Speaker 2 Yes, during the march. People were hanging from all sorts of posts and ropes and other things, and I remember them shouting to one another, “Aroyf, aroyf, aroyf!” I remember that word: “Aroyf!” Yes, everyone wanted to see the Rebbe.

1:08:18 Speaker 7 The farbrengen in the sukkah, in the years when the Rebbe farbrenged in the sukkah.

1:08:22 Speaker 2 It was difficult, difficult. So much pushing. There wasn’t enough room. The sukkah was between the two buildings.

1:08:31 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm. And when did you return to Israel?

1:08:42 Speaker 2 Well, I didn’t return to Israel.

1:08:45 Speaker 7 Before the return, when was the yechidus? When were you supposed to return? Had you gone for a year?

1:08:50 Speaker 2 Once I decided, I could stay as long as I wanted.

1:08:52 Speaker 7 But you decided—

1:08:52 Speaker 2 Up to the limit. But what happened was, I had a shidduch proposal in Paris.

1:08:58 Speaker 7 Ah.

1:08:58 Speaker 2 With the woman who became my wife. On the way there, I was at the yeshivah, and the director of Beis Rivkah met me and made the suggestion. I told him, “Listen, I’m on my way to the Rebbe now. Why would I start dealing with a shidduch now? What, should she wait a year, a year and a half? I don’t want that.” He said, “But do you promise that if you’re available and she’s available, you’ll...” I said yes. So whenever he came, he would ask me, “She still doesn’t have anything in the works. Neither do you.” Well, and here—

1:09:35 Speaker 7 Did the director come to the Rebbe several times during that year?

1:09:38 Speaker 2 He would ask me every time, yes.

1:09:38 Speaker 7 Who was he?

1:09:40 Speaker 2 Rabbi, uh—

1:09:41 Speaker 7 Gurvitch?

1:09:41 Speaker 2 Gurvitch.

1:09:42 Speaker 7 Ravel[unclear].

1:09:43 Speaker 2 Ravel, yes. Well, on my way back, I passed through Paris. I also had relatives living in Paris, and I wanted to visit the yeshivah again.

1:09:55 Speaker 7 To see Rabbi Nissim.

1:09:57 Speaker 2 Nissim. Three of us bochurim arrived together, and we had a farbrengen. I remember that big reel-to-reel tape recorder. All the chassidim came to—

1:10:05 Speaker 7 Ah, you brought recordings of the Rebbe.

1:10:08 Speaker 2 The latest recording.

1:10:10 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:10:10 Speaker 2 So everyone sat and listened, including Rabbi Nissim. Afterward, each of us repeated a sicha. There was this feeling—bochurim coming from the Rebbe! Wow, the way they welcomed us... Yes. Well, then there was the shidduch, and—

1:10:32 Speaker 7 Just a second. Before that, had you written to the Rebbe that you were returning to Israel for a shidduch, or what happened?

1:10:37 Speaker 2 No, he knew I was going to Paris because the proposal was there.

1:10:41 Speaker 7 Ah, you wrote to the Rebbe before yechidus—

1:10:43 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:10:43 Speaker 7 So—

1:10:44 Speaker 2 Not only that. Well, I’ll tell you, what can I do?

1:10:48 Speaker 7 Tell us, tell us.

1:10:48 Speaker 2 Okay. I had about three proposals at the same time. So when I wrote before yechidus that I had three proposals—this person was suggesting one, another person another, and the director another—the Rebbe hinted to me about the director. To me, that meant the shidduch was from the Rebbe, since he had pointed me toward the director.

1:11:12 Speaker 7 So what did he hint to you? What was the hint?

1:11:14 Speaker 2 Apparently, he knew that—

1:11:15 Speaker 7 No, what was the hint? What did he say?

1:11:19 Speaker 2 I had asked, in effect, what should I do? I have three proposals.

1:11:22 Speaker 7 And?

1:11:22 Speaker 2 What should I do? Which one should I pursue?

1:11:24 Speaker 7 And?

1:11:25 Speaker 2 He hinted to me that—

1:11:26 Speaker 7 How did he hint?

1:11:27 Speaker 2 That I don’t remember.

1:11:28 Speaker 7 With his finger, with...

1:11:30 Speaker 2 No, something about Gurvitch. Apparently he knew from Gurvitch himself, or something, that I had promised...

1:11:38 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:11:39 Speaker 2 That was it. He gave me to understand. And of course I didn’t say anything to her, but I went with the sure thing.

1:11:48 Speaker 7 So you met there and became—

1:11:50 Speaker 2 That’s it, I became engaged. Then I was offered the shlichus in... Milan.

1:11:55 Speaker 7 Just a second, we’ll get to the shlichus. Where did you get married?

1:11:58 Speaker 2 We got married in Israel.

1:11:59 Speaker 7 In Israel.

1:12:00 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:12:00 Speaker 7 What year?

1:12:01 Speaker 2 In [unclear].

1:12:02 Speaker 7 Ah, in Bnei Brak.

1:12:03 Speaker 2 In Bnei Brak. Rabbi [unclear] was our rav then.

1:12:05 Speaker 7 Yes. Where—what year?

1:12:07 Speaker 2 Huh?

1:12:08 Speaker 7 What year?

1:12:10 Speaker 2 Twenty... twenty-seven.

1:12:12 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm. Then came the proposal to go on shlichus to Italy. At first, did you live in Israel or in France?

1:12:19 Speaker 2 No, no, no. Right after, after the—

1:12:23 Speaker 7 Wedding.

1:12:24 Speaker 2 No, no, after the vort.

1:12:25 Speaker 7 Yes.

1:12:25 Speaker 2 I had already gone to Milan.

1:12:28 Speaker 7 Ah, as a—

1:12:30 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:12:30 Speaker 7 Who offered you that?

1:12:32 Speaker 2 Rabbi Haddad, z"l.

1:12:34 Speaker 7 Rabbi Yehoshua Haddad?

1:12:36 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:12:37 Speaker 7 He suggested that you come work with him?

1:12:39 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:12:40 Speaker 7 Tell us a little about him. Who was he?

1:12:43 Speaker 2 Rabbi Haddad?

1:12:43 Speaker 7 Yes, tell us, because not everyone knows him.

1:12:46 Speaker 2 He was a Moroccan Jew, a great Torah scholar. He knew many languages. A very, very, very wise and perceptive man, knowledgeable about worldly matters too. The Rebbe was very fond of him. Yes.

1:13:04 Speaker 7 What was his role there? What work did he offer you?

1:13:07 Speaker 2 He was the rabbi of the Sephardic community.

1:13:11 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm. And what did he want you to come for?

1:13:13 Speaker 2 He wanted me to work in kashrus.

1:13:16 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:13:17 Speaker 2 We created a position that hadn’t existed so I could get papers.

1:13:21 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:13:21 Speaker 2 In practice, when you’re there, you’re on shlichus. There’s no question about it. I gave classes to French-speaking young men, since I didn’t know Italian yet.

1:13:32 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:13:32 Speaker 2 And they became baalei teshuvah, and so on. Yes.

1:13:37 Speaker 7 Did you ask the Rebbe about this shlichus?

1:13:40 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:13:41 Speaker 7 Or did he write to the Rebbe?

1:13:43 Speaker 2 I don’t know whether he wrote or not. I wrote myself, received a blessing, and that was it.

1:13:48 Speaker 7 And before the wedding, you had already told your prospective wife that you were supposed to go to Milan.

1:13:53 Speaker 2 Yes. After the wedding, we arrived in Milan. We were there for eighteen years.

1:13:58 Speaker 7 Eighteen years—chai years.

1:14:00 Speaker 2 Chai years we were in Milan, yes.

1:14:04 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

1:14:04 Speaker 2 By then, three of our children were already in schools here, without anyone to look after them. Neither my family nor my wife’s family was in a position to do that.

1:14:14 Speaker 7 Ah, they were in Israel?

1:14:16 Speaker 2 Yes, they were in schools here.

1:14:18 Speaker 7 Because there was nowhere for them to study in Italy, so they came to—

1:14:20 Speaker 2 Now there are eight grades. Back then, there was nothing to be done.

1:14:22 Speaker 7 So they were here, but before we get to that—

1:14:24 Speaker 2 We had... no—

1:14:25 Speaker 7 We’ll get to that. But while you were in Milan, did you travel to the Rebbe during those eighteen years?

1:14:30 Speaker 2 There wasn’t a Kinus Hashluchim yet.

1:14:31 Speaker 7 Right.

1:14:32 Speaker 2 We would travel for 19 Shvat. Every time we went, we had yechidus.

1:14:38 Speaker 7 What was it like?

1:14:42 Speaker 2 The Rebbe was very interested in what each of us was doing, what was happening with him.

1:14:48 Speaker 7 What do you mean, “each of us”—you and...?

1:14:49 Speaker 2 All the shluchim there.

1:14:50 Speaker 7 Ah, did all the shluchim go in together?

1:14:52 Speaker 2 No, each one separately.

1:14:53 Speaker 7 Each shliach separately.

1:14:54 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:14:54 Speaker 7 And you traveled alone, without your wife.

1:14:57 Speaker 2 Uh, yes. Though there were a few times when my wife came too, and even the children once.

1:15:04 Speaker 7 But for 19 Shvat you traveled alone, and the Rebbe would ask about the details of your shlichus?

1:15:09 Speaker 2 Yes. We would ask questions about various things. There were some difficult matters on shlichus, but boruch Hashem.

1:15:15 Speaker 7 What, for example, can you share?

1:15:17 Speaker 2 What?

1:15:18 Speaker 7 What, for example, can you share?

1:15:21 Speaker 2 The Italian rabbinate—the Italian rabbis aren’t Reform, G-d forbid, but they are modern people. The rabbi also has a doctorate or something. In any case, we were on very good terms, and then they said, “If you’re a sofer, write gittin for us.” I’m not a sofer for gittin. First of all, it’s a skill, and not an easy one. It’s not a mezuzah. The letters are bigger, and there are many laws. It’s not simple. It’s also an unpleasant occasion, and so on. That’s the first thing. Second, who knows who sits on the beis din there? Can I decide? These are serious matters. So I would tell them that I was very sensitive and couldn’t write gittin. But the dilemma was that, in the end, for the sake of our outreach work, I had to write them. We brought in Rabbi Gavriel Pevzner, and several times we wrote what was needed. There was no choice. But I was afraid they’d testify about it there, and then what would they say to me? “You lied?”

1:16:44 Speaker 8 So for the outreach work, you had to write gittin.

1:16:48 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:16:49 Speaker 8 And you were afraid the community would see that you had written gittin.

1:16:52 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Because they were the ones paying my salary.

1:16:55 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

1:16:57 Speaker 2 It wasn’t a big salary, and the work was hard. But it was all so the paperwork would be in order.

1:17:02 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

1:17:04 Speaker 2 Health insurance and everything else, so we could operate. So we did our work, and, boruch Hashem, we had baalei teshuvah and lots of interesting stories.

1:17:13 Speaker 8 We’ll get to the stories about the baalei teshuvah in a moment, but the Rebbe addressed this matter of writing gittin, didn’t he?

1:17:18 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:17:19 Speaker 8 What happened?

1:17:21 Speaker 2 One of the founders went with Rabbi Garelik and asked the Rebbe what to do about it, about this situation. The Rebbe offered a solution. He said to make an agreement with the Italian community: they would handle the conversions, and Chabad would handle the gittin.

1:17:56 Speaker 8 Wow. So the Rebbe went into the details of how to—

1:18:02 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:18:04 Speaker 8 There were also some responses concerning Rabbi Yisroel Chadad and kashrus, weren’t there?

1:18:08 Speaker 2 He was especially involved in kashrus, yes. He was an expert in all those matters—nikkur, weddings, all sorts of things. It was quite an operation. People used to go to the Hilton and other respectable hotels and eat fish from the hotels’ dishes. So, boruch Hashem, we got people used to having separate dishes. The hotels agreed to set up a closed kosher kitchen on condition that they’d have ten or fifteen celebrations there. Then they bought all the dishes, and we even reached the point where sometimes there was a mechitzah. Yes, a completely different standard.

1:18:52 Speaker 8 What an impact. And what were you starting to say? You once went into yechidus with your family?

1:18:58 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:18:58 Speaker 8 What happened?

1:18:59 Speaker 2 Something interesting. My oldest son, Shimon, is a shliach at the Dead Sea today.

1:19:08 Speaker 8 Rabbi Shimon.

1:19:09 Speaker 2 Rabbi Shimon, yes. He was standing beside the Rebbe—the Rebbe was sitting here, and Shimon was beside him. My wife was standing with a baby in her arms. That was Mendy, who’s in—

1:19:24 Speaker 8 Kiryat Gat.

1:19:26 Speaker 2 And a little girl was standing beside her. The Rebbe asked, “What language do you speak with the children?” She answered, “French.”

1:19:33 Speaker 8 You spoke French with the children at home.

1:19:35 Speaker 2 Yes. Then the Rebbe asked Shimon in French, “Quel est votre nom?”—“What is your name?” The child wasn’t used to being addressed formally.

1:19:46 Speaker 8 Right.

1:19:48 Speaker 2 He didn’t answer. The Rebbe said, “Votre nom?”—“Your name?” Nothing. “Le nom, le nom?”—“The name, the name?” Nothing. Finally Shimon said to me, “Papa, qu’est-ce que demande le Rabbi?”—“What is the Rebbe asking?” I said, “Il demande comment tu t’appelles”—“He’s asking what your name is.” So he said, “Shimon K.” The Rebbe gave such a smile.

1:20:08 Speaker 8 What did he say?

1:20:09 Speaker 2 “Shimon K.”

1:20:10 Speaker 8 “Shimon K.”

1:20:11 Speaker 2 Yes, the Rebbe gave such a smile. It was a delight. Then he pressed a button, and Rabbi Klein came in. I still remember the Rebbe’s words to him: “Breng do etliche siddurim”—“Bring some siddurim here.” So he brought siddurim. They were softcover Tehillat Hashem siddurim printed in Israel. The Rebbe gave each child a siddur and said, “May it be His will that they grow up and daven from this siddur, and that their prayers be received favorably.” The children still have those siddurim.

1:20:45 Speaker 8 Wow.

1:20:45 Speaker 2 Weddings—

1:20:46 Speaker 8 For the three children: Shimon, Mendy, and your daughter.

1:20:49 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

1:20:50 Speaker 8 Wow. And did the Rebbe say anything to you or your wife, Rabbi Yitzchak, about the children? Or was his main attention on the children?

1:20:58 Speaker 2 My wife did ask something.

1:20:59 Speaker 8 What?

1:21:00 Speaker 2 She said there were some disagreements between people. That’s normal; I’m not telling you anything new. She asked about that too. He comes too, he’s a chossid too—

1:21:08 Speaker 8 He’s also gone out on shlichus.

1:21:09 Speaker 2 He’s also doing his shlichus.

1:21:11 Speaker 8 He goes out on shlichus too.

1:21:12 Speaker 2 We know that; it doesn’t faze us.

1:21:14 Speaker 8 So she spoke about—

1:21:15 Speaker 2 You can’t do without him. He’s a shliach, and we’re shluchim. We’re good friends. The Rebbe said, in three words, “That’s as far as it goes.” Don’t take it any further.

1:21:29 Speaker 8 So your wife wrote to the Rebbe about this—or did she say it?

1:21:32 Speaker 2 She wrote to the Rebbe herself, in her own handwriting, and said it bothered her a little that there were disagreements. The Rebbe told her, “It depends on the women. If you women make peace among yourselves, the men will make peace among themselves too.” Quite a revelation, isn’t it? Though it’s obvious.

1:21:54 Speaker 8 Yes.

1:21:55 Speaker 2 Everything depends on the woman.

1:21:58 Speaker 8 That’s what the Rebbe said: “If you women make peace among yourselves, there will also be peace between the husbands.”

1:22:04 Speaker 2 There was another interesting story. When we were in Italy, my wife hadn’t been to the Rebbe, while I kept traveling. She decided to go for Simchas Torah with our son Mendy, who’s in Kiryat Gat now. I went to the travel agent and said, “Here are the passports. If you can get visas immediately”—it was the first day of Yom Tov, and for us it’s two days—

1:22:33 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

1:22:33 Speaker 2 “If you can get visas, book the tickets for me. If there are no visas, don’t book them.” He understood me very well. He wrote a good letter saying, “These are Jews who observe the holiday. Please take that into account and issue the visas.” He made an effort and got the visas, so they traveled. They were there throughout the holiday, with all the dancing, and were supposed to come back after Simchas Torah. My son, a young chossid, said to his mother, “No way—the Rebbe wants people to stay through Shabbos Bereishis.” She said, “Fine, but this is an unusual ticket.” He said, “I’ll take care of it.” He called over there, and they told him there was no problem. We changed this, crossed out that, and so on. He told her, “Mom, don’t worry, I’ve arranged everything.” She believed him. He speaks a little English, and all seemed fine. Then came the day she had to fly, after Shabbos Bereishis. She was standing with all the people who were leaving. To everyone the Rebbe said, “For gezunterheit,” “Bon voyage,” and so on. He looked at my wife and said, “Brachah vehatzlachah.” Oh my! She thought, “I’m not going to say the Rebbe made a mistake, but what does this mean?”

1:23:49 Speaker 8 He wished everyone else a good trip, and to me he said, “Brachah vehatzlachah”?

1:23:53 Speaker 2 Yes. She thought, “Maybe I’m mistaken; I don’t know. I’ll wait and go by again before the trip.” She went by a second time. He looked at her as if to say, “I already told you,” and said again, “Brachah vehatzlachah.” He saw that she was stunned, so he said to her, “Amen!” What turned out to have happened? She got to the airport, and they told her, “Ma’am, your return flight was canceled, and now you’re not listed on the flight.” Nothing could be done. She started crying. “I don’t even have a way to get back to—”

1:24:30 Speaker 9 [unclear]

1:24:31 Speaker 2 “What am I supposed to do, buy tickets for both of them? It’s…” They treated her nicely, and in the end they did sort it out for her. They were human beings, after all. She spoke to them in Italian, and they were considerate. They let her board.

1:24:49 Speaker 9 But still—

1:24:50 Speaker 2 But look: the Rebbe said “Brachah vehatzlachah” again. He saw she was stunned, so he said, “Amen!” Come on, understand already.

1:25:02 Speaker 9 Wow.

1:25:03 Speaker 2 I’m not looking for extraordinary stories about the Rebbe.

1:25:08 Speaker 9 What was the Rebbe’s relationship with the Jews of Italy like? Were they among those who traveled to the Rebbe? Did Jews from the Sephardic community become close?

1:25:15 Speaker 2 Certainly, there were several. We’d always receive greetings from them. The Rebbe spoke with them very, very directly. He’d ask about each person: “How is so-and-so? He wrote me that he wasn’t feeling well. How is he? And what about this one?” He even once asked about someone—I don’t want to say his name—“Why did they go to the trouble of bringing him to Milan if they have no way for him to earn a living? Aren’t there enough shluchim? Just increasing the number isn’t the point.” And he showed him a letter he had in a drawer from a shliach who wrote that he had no livelihood and didn’t know what to do. He was an educator, and they had given him who knows what. You see? So they went through him. I think that question I mentioned earlier, about asking the Rebbe concerning a get—I was the one who suggested that someone ask the Rebbe. The question came from me.

1:26:12 Speaker 9 And the Jews who weren’t Chabad—the Jews from the Sephardic community—did they travel too? Did they—

1:26:17 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:26:17 Speaker 9 Connect with the Rebbe?

1:26:18 Speaker 2 Certainly.

1:26:18 Speaker 9 Yes.

1:26:19 Speaker 2 Whenever they had an opportunity to travel to the Rebbe, they went.

1:26:23 Speaker 9 So what was Reb Boruch Mendel like?

1:26:27 Speaker 2 Oh, such a tzaddik.

1:26:29 Speaker 9 Well, tell us a little about him.

1:26:33 Speaker 2 Oy, oy, oy, oy. Well, sometimes we would first learn a sicha of the Rebbe or a maamar together, all of Anash. And each of us—

1:26:45 Speaker 9 You don’t remember him, but he was at the yeshiva in Israel.

1:26:47 Speaker 2 No.

1:26:48 Speaker 9 By the time you arrived, he had already left.

1:26:49 Speaker 2 No, no, no. He—Arik was there too—

1:26:52 Speaker 9 Yes.

1:26:52 Speaker 2 He left and didn’t come back, yes. Well, farbrengens with him would go on properly. And each of us was active in a particular shul. Afterward we would all gather. On Simchas Torah, for instance, each person would come back from his shul, and we would all go to the shul of Rabbi Garlick, of blessed memory. There we would have our own second hakafos.

1:27:20 Speaker 9 Yes.

1:27:20 Speaker 2 Not with the congregants.

1:27:21 Speaker 9 But Chabad-style.

1:27:23 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:27:23 Speaker 9 After you had worked in the Sephardic shuls or the other communities.

1:27:27 Speaker 2 I’ll never forget one time when I came the eight kilometers back from the Italian shul where I was active. That’s another story.

1:27:35 Speaker 9 Mm-hmm.

1:27:37 Speaker 2 We all gathered, and suddenly some of the fellows, who were already drunk, saw that I was far too sober. They descended on me and gave me drinks, while I shouted at the top of my lungs, “I don’t want to get drunk! Oy vey! What are you doing to me?” “No, come on, come on”—and they gave me drinks. I got home, where I had guests, people I was close with. In the end I wasn’t at the table, and that’s how the whole...

1:28:05 Speaker 9 Simchas Torah went.

1:28:06 Speaker 2 Yes. Well, we had many people we had become close with.

1:28:13 Speaker 9 You worked there in an Italian shul?

1:28:15 Speaker 2 Yes. I got the hardest assignment of all. At first I was with Rabbi Haddad, and then I taught classes to the Lebanese until they left after the Six-Day War.

1:28:26 Speaker 9 Mm-hmm.

1:28:27 Speaker 2 That was in French. But afterward Rabbi Garlick asked me about [unclear], the Italians. It was a community that had existed before the war. After the war they moved to the center, but the place remained. There’s a small shul there, with the Italian nusach—a distinctive nusach. No one was active there. From my home it was seven kilometers.

1:28:57 Speaker 9 Wow.

1:28:58 Speaker 2 I was young, a new immigrant. And of course, going there meant I had to speak Italian. The first time, I remember saying to them, “Listen, who has the problem here—you or me? Let’s see. I’m speaking to you in Lashon Kodesh, and you don’t understand. So I’ll speak to you in my broken Italian. I have no choice. Either you speak Hebrew and I’ll speak fluently, or—” They said, “No problem.” So I would speak Italian, and I could see people wincing as though they were chewing gravel.

1:29:41 Speaker 9 Because your Italian was hard to understand.

1:29:43 Speaker 2 Because, because it’s... It’s all right, it’s all right. Because there’s—

1:29:47 Speaker 9 It’s—

1:29:47 Speaker 2 Because Italian has a melody. You sing it.

1:29:52 Speaker 9 Mm-hmm. It needs a particular melody. And did you do a lot there in that shul?

1:30:00 Speaker 2 To this day, the Italian shul has a library for which I got people to donate. There are books in many languages, including Lashon Kodesh. Our name is still written there. And we established what we called a Talmud Torah, though really we wanted it to be open to everyone.

1:30:26 Speaker 9 Mm-hmm.

1:30:27 Speaker 2 How did it begin? Like this. At first it was very difficult. These were people who only came if there was a bar mitzvah, a Kaddish, something like that. Then this happened: they brought a boy who had never been in a shul for his bar mitzvah. They gave him a round Sephardic Torah scroll in its case.

1:30:49 Speaker 9 Yes.

1:30:50 Speaker 2 He walked in front, and I followed him.

1:30:52 Speaker 9 Mm-hmm.

1:30:53 Speaker 2 As is customary—the rabbis walk behind.

1:30:55 Speaker 9 Going up.

1:30:56 Speaker 2 Suddenly he dropped the Torah scroll on the floor.

1:30:58 Speaker 9 Wow.

1:30:58 Speaker 2 I took the scroll—

1:30:59 Speaker 9 It must have been heavy for him.

1:31:01 Speaker 2 I immediately stepped ahead of him, took the scroll, and said, “Come, we’ll carry it together.” And we continued that way. Everyone was trembling with fear. They were simple people, but they knew what it meant for a Torah scroll to fall. “Rabbi, explain to us—what does this mean?” I said, “Listen. It means the boy isn’t to blame. His family has nothing to worry about. He had never seen this before. If he’d come more often, he would have been used to it. For one thing, we wouldn’t have given him a scroll like that. But what can we learn from this, all of us together? The Torah is upset with us. It was given to us so that we would study it, and it sits closed in the ark. There’s Torah Shebe’al Peh, of course, and books in different languages. Let’s make this right. We’ll set a day of fasting because the scroll fell, and we’ll all come, with tefillin and everything.” And everyone came. People who never came to shul came; I bought tefillin, and I saw old pairs. We began checking everything. And we decided that every Sunday, the day off abroad, we would meet from ten until twelve or twelve-thirty.

1:32:19 Speaker 9 For Torah study.

1:32:20 Speaker 2 Yes, for boys, girls, women, and fathers. “I suggest every family come, all together. I’m not checking who comes, who doesn’t, or for how long. If you’re going into a butcher shop, come in for five minutes. Ask a question, get an answer, and go. Going on an outing? Fine—stop by on your way.”

1:32:45 Speaker 9 Stop by, come for a little while.

1:32:47 Speaker 2 “Come in. Take a book and return it next week. Keep in touch. That’s all.” And little by little we got started. I brought teachers, men and women; my wife and I were there, and so on. At first we would stand by the window, and there was no one. But we’re stubborn. We waited and waited until people came to pay their community dues and saw us. “Oh, it wouldn’t be nice not to go in.” They would come in for a moment and sit down. I began learning Tanya with them in Italian. Gradually I developed a method for drawing in those who attended the class regularly, beyond just studying. Tanya, of course, wasn’t word by word; we discussed ideas suited to their situation. For halachos, I adopted a method they use in camp. I brought lots of straps and taught them how to make a tefillin knot. When you teach someone to make a tefillin knot, it means he’ll have tefillin. “Bring them in to be checked.” And they learned. There was a kind of excitement: “Wow, how do you do that?” Everyone would sit in a row, making one, while I guided them. We brought cardboard with holes and strings to make tzitzis—the most ordinary kind of tzitzis, as described in the Kitzur. So several people made kosher tzitzis and began wearing them. That was the method that opened things up, and so—

1:34:19 Speaker 9 A person becomes a partner; he takes part by actually doing something.

1:34:22 Speaker 2 One family—I can mention their name for a blessing, Cohenka[?]—was a family with deep roots. They originally came from Turkey, but they were Italians, thoroughly Italian. It was very hard to bring Italians closer. They transformed their home completely. The father, a very educated man, began learning Gemara too. He began to learn. The family changed completely. Now there are sons and already grandchildren. When I come to visit, the grandchildren come over: “Rabbi Elharar!” “Who are you?” I say. “I don’t know you.” “But I know you.” They never knew their grandparents as they had been before.

1:35:02 Speaker 9 Wow.

1:35:03 Speaker 2 There was another interesting story. That first Simchas Torah there—[unclear]. Honestly, a man in a black six-sided hat and a black robe stood holding the Torah scroll, chanting a monotonous tune: “Ta ta tam, pa pa pam.” Everyone on the Italian side watched. He made his circuit around the bimah, and that was it. Done. First hakafah, second hakafah. I thought, “I could bury myself. This won’t work.” The following year I told him and the gabbai, “We’re bringing mashke, we’re making Kiddush, and we’ll do it before Aleinu. I’ll bring some fellows who have already become close.” I prepared notes with familiar songs that they did sing—“Banu, banu,” “Sali,” and so on. It didn’t matter what: “Dovid Melech Yisroel,” whatever they knew.

1:36:06 Speaker 9 The main thing was for them to be happy.

1:36:06 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Well, at first the chazzan told me, “That isn’t our custom. If they drink, they’ll leave. There won’t be any hakafos.” I said, “No.” In the end the gabbai told the chazzan, “If the rabbi says so, he knows what he’s saying. We have to listen to him.” I wasn’t a formal rabbi, not at all. I never sat up on the bimah. I was one of the congregation. “I’m not a rabbi, not a formal rabbi. I’m here with you.” That’s how it works. Well, that Simchas Torah turned everything around. We got everyone dancing! One man didn’t want to dance. He said, “I don’t know how.” I said, “I was at your uncle’s wedding. That shoulder dance with... with her. You can dance with your wife? Dance with the Torah!” They weren’t used to it because I’m very quiet, a man of few words. So when I suddenly opened my mouth, it became a celebration, whether you joined me or not. Shimon, may he be well—I should mention this—was a little boy then. “Dad, I’m coming with you on mivtzoim. I’m coming, I’m coming.” What a character... On the way back he said to me, “Dad, Dad, listen carefully: say l’chaim, get everyone dancing, carry out the Rebbe’s shlichus. I’ll lead you home afterward, because I know the way.” Such a sweet little boy.

1:37:30 Speaker 9 That caring.

1:37:32 Speaker 2 That’s why, to this day, they tell me, “We grew up on shlichus. We know what...”

1:37:35 Speaker 9 Right, right, Boruch Hashem.

1:37:37 Speaker 2 Well, in short, there was someone named Barky—Barky was his surname. He was an older only child. He had several sports medals, in swimming, car racing, cycling, you name it.

1:37:54 Speaker 9 Athletic.

1:37:55 Speaker 2 Athletic, but serious, and studying at university. We connected that Simchas Torah. I said to him, “Can I invite you to my home?” He said, “Yes, but it’s a long way.” I said, “If I walk, will you...” He said, “No.” He told me, “I’m athletic, but you...” I said, “You’ll see.” So that’s how we connected. I started learning with him, and he began to grow closer. Then the time came for us to move to Israel, and he was making more and more progress. He had a non-Jewish girlfriend named Miriam. You understand what that meant? He understood the problem, and the poor fellow was torn. He said, “She wants me so much,” and they’d already been together for several years. “What am I going to do? Maybe she could convert, maybe this, maybe that.” He understood that this couldn’t be his future. He didn’t know what to do about her. When he came to the class, he knew this wasn’t right, but when he went to her, you felt sorry for him.

1:39:05 Speaker 9 He didn’t have the courage.

1:39:07 Speaker 2 Oh, it was terrible. And now we were about to leave. That made it a problem. He came over, and we hugged and kissed. He said to me, “Tell me something before you go.” I said, “Ribbono Shel Olam, help me say the right words.” I told him, “Listen, you strike me as a real gentleman. A man and woman are bound to argue sometimes. Who calls first to make up? You?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Listen, next time that happens, it may be your last chance. If you don’t grab the rope they throw you from Heaven, there may be no going back. Will it be hard? Soak your pillow with tears and cry. The first day she’ll say, ‘What? He hasn’t called. What’s going on with him?’ The second day, ‘Oh, that Jew.’ The third, the fourth—you’ll see.” He took it seriously. Some time later, someone came to visit me. We didn’t even have telephones here yet... Yes. He came and told me, “I came especially from Barky to tell you that he did what you told him, and he broke up with the non-Jewish woman.”

1:40:25 Speaker 9 Wow, wow.

1:40:30 Speaker 2 And how did it happen? He said it was very simple: “He didn’t call.” He went through a week of torment. The second day, he still didn’t call. She wondered what had happened to him and sent someone to check. He was alive and well. She called; he didn’t answer. Then she started getting angry. “What did I do to him? Why? If only he’d talk to me.” Nothing, nothing, nothing. Until one day she said, “That Jew,” and started cursing him.

1:40:55 Speaker 9 Wow.

1:40:55 Speaker 2 Then he realized—aha.

1:40:57 Speaker 9 He saw who she really was.

1:40:59 Speaker 2 Ah, when she wasn’t getting anywhere, then... yes.

1:41:04 Speaker 9 You once told me the story about the Torah scroll, too.

1:41:08 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:41:09 Speaker 9 Tell us the story.

1:41:12 Speaker 2 There was a Persian family. They actually have a relative here in Emmanuel. Mixed marriage was absolutely out of the question for them. They had a daughter who was apparently older and hadn’t found a match. They were all wealthy, rather snobbish people, and she was simpler, let’s say. Maybe she didn’t have any special education. I don’t know the reason. She hadn’t found a match. It’s very hard for someone living abroad: there isn’t a large selection there, and not everyone in Israel wants to move abroad. It isn’t like it used to be, when America and other countries were so appealing. People like to come for a visit and then go home. They love Israel. Well, her father didn’t know what to do, so he threw her out of the house. She had a non-Jewish boyfriend from Sicily.

1:42:02 Speaker 9 Wait.

1:42:02 Speaker 2 She had become friendly with him.

1:42:03 Speaker 9 So the daughter had become friendly with a non-Jewish man?

1:42:05 Speaker 2 Yes, she had become friendly with him.

1:42:06 Speaker 9 And the father wasn’t happy about it.

1:42:08 Speaker 2 The father said, “What, you won’t leave that man? Then get out of the house.” After that, she would secretly come to see her mother so her father wouldn’t see her. She and her mother would cry. Eventually he had an idea. He said, “I’ll have a Torah scroll written,” intending that its merit would help her return. And that’s what he did. All the shluchim and rabbis gathered, and—

1:42:38 Speaker 9 It was the father’s idea? He decided on it himself?

1:42:40 Speaker 2 He decided, yes, and had it written. When it was finished, we came for the completion. He cried. It turns out she had come into the house through the—the sort of grand house they had has many entrances. There was an entrance straight into the kitchen from the elevator.

1:43:02 Speaker 9 From the elevator.

1:43:02 Speaker 2 For bringing in vegetables.

1:43:04 Speaker 9 Food.

1:43:04 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:43:05 Speaker 9 Records.

1:43:05 Speaker 2 That was how she would go in to see her mother, while all the men sat in the living room. It was a big living room, with wallpaper and all that. They brought in the Torah scroll, and she heard her father crying. Her heart went out to him, and she decided to leave the man completely. And that’s what happened.

1:43:23 Speaker 9 She left the non-Jewish man.

1:43:25 Speaker 2 In the end, after the Torah scroll was brought in, she left him and came home. That’s the story.

1:43:37 Speaker 9 So, in the merit of having the Torah scroll written, she herself decided.

1:43:40 Speaker 2 That’s what happened.

1:43:41 Speaker 9 Yes.

1:43:44 Speaker 2 If I’m not mistaken, the father’s name was Elisha, if I remember correctly. It’s been many years.

1:43:50 Speaker 9 So how many years were you in Italy?

1:43:52 Speaker 2 We already said: fifteen years.

1:43:54 Speaker 9 Eighteen years. That is, from 5726.

1:43:57 Speaker 2 Oh, until—

1:43:58 Speaker 9 Until 5744.

1:43:59 Speaker 2 5744, yes. ’84, yes.

1:44:03 Speaker 9 The Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and you were there—

1:44:05 Speaker 2 During the Six-Day War we were in Milan. It was already our first year there, and from there we experienced all the fear people felt here. Everyone knew that all the Arab countries wanted to launch a war against us at once. How could we fight on every border at the same time? Look at what we have today. Then, suddenly, the war broke out, and the consulate called everyone liable for military service. I got a phone call. They told me, “Pack a bag. If you’re needed, we’ll come and pick you up, because it looks as though this is going to be something—”

1:44:50 Speaker 9 Long.

1:44:50 Speaker 2 Long and difficult. No, it wasn’t simple. I put my tallis and tefillin in a bag by the door, because they could come without warning. They had a plane carrying equipment, and sometimes there was room to squeeze in a few people who were needed. Within a few hours, we already knew that the planes of all the Arab countries had been destroyed and that we had the upper hand. They still hadn’t announced it in Israel. Then the consulate called again and said, “Put your bag back in the closet. But we have a request: we’re coming on Shabbos to make an appeal, and you’ll translate for us into Italian.” They held a very, very successful appeal. The Jews—

1:45:34 Speaker 9 Opened their doors.

1:45:35 Speaker 2 After the war there was great prosperity. Italy was very prosperous then, and the Jews donated and donated and donated. Yes.

1:45:49 Speaker 9 Do you remember another trip to the Rebbe, something special?

1:45:57 Speaker 2 We used to travel every time. Ah, yes, this is interesting. It would be a shame to miss it. Very interesting. Here’s what happened. It was early on. My wife was pregnant with Shimon and was supposed to come with me. At the last minute, the doctors said, “No, we recommend that you not travel.” So she said, “All right, go on your own.” It was in the summer, a little before Rosh Hashanah, and I had to return before Rosh Hashanah. Why? Because shluchim need to be with their communities. We weren’t supposed to be there. Now picture me sitting there through the hottest days—but the Rebbe was there. Then Rosh Hashanah was approaching. I stood outside on the sidewalk and watched everyone arriving. They got out of taxis smiling, with their suitcases. People saw me standing there, looking serious, with nothing. “What’s the matter?” I said, “I’m going back.” “Why?” “Don’t you know that shluchim...” I felt rather awkward. Then I had a yechidus. You write everything to the Rebbe, so what did I write? That I was standing on the sidewalk watching everyone arrive, while I was going back before Rosh Hashanah, as I was supposed to, and that it was hard for me. I told the Rebbe how I felt and asked for a blessing that I should succeed. I’d try to make the best of it. Well, the Rebbe took the note and said to me, “Postpone your ticket until after Rosh Hashanah.” See how much the Rebbe cared that I was hurting.

1:47:51 Speaker 9 He told you to stay until Rosh Hashanah?

1:47:52 Speaker 2 Yes. But after Rosh Hashanah I was to leave. Really, I shouldn’t even have been there then, because I was the only sofer who could check more tefillin, and more and more. At least between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I would do as much as I could. Well, the story doesn’t end there. I knew I was leaving, so on Rosh Hashanah I went up with this little bottle. I have it here.

1:48:18 Speaker 9 The little bottle of mashke.

1:48:20 Speaker 2 Yes. I went up, gave it to the secretary, and he put it... I was one of the few who were going back—and Rosh Hashanah isn’t the day—

1:48:28 Speaker 9 The [unclear] there is very serious, after all.

1:48:30 Speaker 2 Yes. Still, because I was leaving right after Rosh Hashanah, I was the only one who went up between the two sichos to receive something from the Rebbe. Well, that time the Rebbe poured mashke into his cup, poured it back into the bottle, and gave it to me. Then came a surprise: he lifted the tablecloth, took a whole round challah, and gave it to me.

1:48:57 Speaker 9 Wow. A challah—not just a piece of dough. A whole challah.

1:49:01 Speaker 2 Shlomo. Yes. Well, I took it in my hand and went back. Rabbi—Reb Mendel Futerfas was there. I was very close with him, because he would come to Milan to raise funds for Russia.

1:49:19 Speaker 9 …

1:49:19 Speaker 2 Every package he sent provided a whole month’s livelihood on the black market for families who...

1:49:25 Speaker 9 …

1:49:27 Speaker 2 And I would drive him around in my car. He told me, “Yehuda, run to your suitcase, quickly.” I was staying where the bochurim were, in that building. “Go to your suitcase and put the challah away.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Oh, no—you won’t have a crumb left. They’ll ask you for some, and you’ll give it to them. You won’t be able to say no.” So that’s what I did. Well, I got home the following Shabbos and put it under the tablecloth. Just then a couple arrived, Rabbi Avremel Lipsker and his wife. I heard—

1:50:01 Speaker 9 He passed away recently, about a year ago.

1:50:03 Speaker 2 Yes. I’m very saddened by it.

1:50:06 Speaker 9 He was a shliach in Mil—so he had just arrived on shlichus?

1:50:08 Speaker 2 He arrived in that very building that same week. Well, we were a couple and they were a couple, so we invited them over. “Come, let’s be together.” He didn’t know the whole story. He sits down next to me, we make Kiddush, go to wash our hands, and come back. He sees me move the tablecloth, and suddenly he sees the Rebbe’s challah. He goes, “Ah, ah, ah”—he gestured with his beard. Well, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah—wow, wow!”

1:50:48 Speaker 9 Wow.

1:50:50 Speaker 2 Of course, we put it in the freezer, and whenever someone wanted to make a cake or something, we’d use some.

1:50:57 Speaker 9 Oh, I don’t think many Jews received a challah from the Rebbe, apart from the Kinus Torah, when the Rebbe would give a challah for the meal afterward, but...

1:51:10 Speaker 2 Do you see how, with everything going on around Rosh Hashanah, the Rebbe cared? He cared that this person—

1:51:19 Speaker 9 A shliach there.

1:51:20 Speaker 2 A shliach who says it hurts him that everyone is arriving while he’s leaving. The Rebbe cared. He cared.

1:51:26 Speaker 9 Wow. I think Rabbi Gershon Nadel[?] also had something like that once, when he wanted to come back and had to return during Elul. The Rebbe said something to him about these being the days when the King is in the field, and that it should be with joy. There was also something with Rabbi Ovadia here in Netanya. We’ll listen to the recording, G-d willing, and hear the exact account another time. I think it was Elul 5747. He had also come because a certain Jew told him that if he came for Shabbos, he could give him a large donation that he needed at the time. He too traveled for Shabbos on shlichus, or something like that, while everyone else was arriving. You can imagine how that felt. He managed to get to dollars—it was already the time when the Rebbe distributed dollars on Sundays. The Rebbe gave him one, and apparently could see what he was feeling. In any case, the Rebbe gave him a dollar for the whole congregation, [unclear]. It was as though the Rebbe was giving him encouragement for his trip. The Rebbe felt what the shluchim were going through.

1:52:34 Speaker 10 Yes.

1:52:37 Speaker 9 There was something else concerning the children that you wrote, that each... each...

1:52:41 Speaker 10 Of course, we received brachos all the time. There was another interesting situation. Once, some bochurim came from Canada. In Canada there’s a region called Quebec.

1:52:56 Speaker 9 Yes, yes.

1:52:56 Speaker 10 French speakers live there.

1:52:58 Speaker 9 Montreal is there too.

1:52:59 Speaker 10 They assigned them to me: “You’ll explain everything to them.” The bochurim didn’t look religious. Anyway, it was Shabbos. I think the Rebbe had just come out to go home for the Shabbos meal, and I was coming back with these bochurim from a meal we’d eaten, probably at the yeshiva too.

1:53:30 Speaker 9 At the yeshiva.

1:53:30 Speaker 10 At the yeshiva, something like that. And then we noticed the Rebbe coming toward us. There were three or four bochurim to my right, another two or three to my left, and I was walking in the middle, explaining things to them. Suddenly they see the Rebbe and say to me in French, “What an exalted person!” I tell them, “Quiet—he understands.” Before we could even think, the Rebbe was right there. So I moved a little to the side to let him pass. Pay attention to what happened: in a second, he looked at me, then at the bochurim on my left. A smile for them, a serious look back at me, then a smile. All within seconds. Oy, the poor chassidim—the Rebbe smiles...

1:54:20 Speaker 9 For someone who isn’t close yet, the Rebbe smiles; for chassidim... All in seconds, the Rebbe...

1:54:25 Speaker 10 How everything was calculated in seconds.

1:54:28 Speaker 9 The Rebbe knew that a chossid doesn’t need the closeness of a smile. Among chassidim, a smile like that was considered too much closeness.

1:54:35 Speaker 10 If he needs that closeness, it means he’s not in the right state.

1:54:37 Speaker 9 So the Rebbe smiled at them, and for you it was...

1:54:40 Speaker 10 He smiled, yes.

1:54:43 Speaker 9 That year you were at [unclear]—no, we didn’t mention it. That was the year the Rebbe explained Rashi practically every Shabbos.

1:54:49 Speaker 10 Rashi every Shabbos, and we also had to finish the weekly Chassidus portion in Likkutei Torah. Just as today you see people working through Dvar Malchus on buses and trains, back then you saw them with Likkutei Torah, its tiny Rashi-script letters, the book all crumpled, trying to finish in time. Why? Because during a sicha, the Rebbe would say, “Anyone who finished should say l’chaim.” You can imagine: someone who hadn’t finished would sit where the Rebbe couldn’t see him and keep studying away, while the Rebbe was saying, “L’chaim, l’chaim, l’chaim.” Suddenly, at the very last minute, he’d leap up like a fish out of water: “L’chaim!” Yes.

1:55:41 Speaker 9 The Rebbe mentioned it. That was...

1:55:42 Speaker 10 I was fairly consistent. What would I do? On Motzaei Shabbos I’d take the Chassidus portion and divide it up by days. I’d mark in pencil what I needed to do each day.

1:55:54 Speaker 9 You’d set yourself a schedule in advance.

1:55:56 Speaker 10 An orderly schedule.

1:55:57 Speaker 9 If only we could do that.

1:55:59 Speaker 10 Otherwise I’d fall behind. And what would I do then—just rush through the words? It’s difficult enough in places as it is. It isn’t simple. So, yes.

1:56:09 Speaker 9 In 5752, the Rebbe reminded us of this at the Kinus Hashluchim. At the most recent Kinus Hashluchim, for the time being, one of the directives was to finish the weekly portions of Torah Or and Likkutei Torah.

1:56:20 Speaker 10 Yes, yes.

1:56:21 Speaker 9 If only we manage to do it. Some people do. So you’re saying the way is to plan it in advance, to lay out the week.

1:56:29 Speaker 10 There’s no other way. Someone who’s organized—in general, since we’re talking about it, the Alter Rebbe was very organized, and so is the Rebbe. Someone who’s organized in serving Hashem saves perhaps seventy percent of all the... maybe fifty percent of the time he’d otherwise lose looking for this or that, or waiting to be in the right mood. It’s a completely different world. I’m just saying this from my own experience. Especially when you’re older: when you can’t find something, you get a little nervous. “Where is it?” At the last minute, we mustn’t get flustered. At a certain age, the body gets tired. So the house keys go in the right pocket, the car keys in the left, and this goes here and that goes there.

1:57:23 Speaker 9 They’ll say they have to remember the system. But you’re saying...

1:57:26 Speaker 10 If you do it, you save so much—

1:57:28 Speaker 9 It’s practical advice for life.

1:57:28 Speaker 10 So much time. So much time. Otherwise you’re saying, “What? Where is it? Where did I put it? Where’s my phone? Children, help me look for it! Oh, I’m going to miss the bus.”

1:57:44 Speaker 9 Let’s go back a little. We’ve reached the 5740s; in the early years of 5743–44, you decided to make aliyah.

1:57:53 Speaker 10 Yes.

1:57:53 Speaker 9 Because the children here needed more support.

1:57:56 Speaker 10 Yes, definitely.

1:57:57 Speaker 9 Did you write to the Rebbe about it?

1:57:59 Speaker 10 Of course. We asked... Through hashgachah pratis, we’d already been thinking about it. We thought about Chabad, about all sorts of things. This opportunity came up here. I was the shliach—

1:58:09 Speaker 9 “Here” means Emanuel.

1:58:11 Speaker 10 The shliach in Emanuel, right. The first shliach in the Shomron. Someone else preceded me; I came later. But today every community has a shliach, boruch Hashem.

1:58:23 Speaker 9 Wait, so you wrote to the Rebbe, and...?

1:58:26 Speaker 10 We asked for a brachah for Emanuel. The Rebbe’s answer was the same one he gave almost everyone: “Consult with knowledgeable friends; I will mention it at the Ohel.” We asked Rabbi Groner, I think, why the answer was phrased that way. He explained that if there was even the slightest danger, even the remotest possibility, that would be the Rebbe’s answer. And that fits with something else that happened. Once, a mitzvah tank drove into Shechem. We used to go into Shechem freely for mivtzoim, and into Qalqilya too. He went in as well, and suddenly a stone was thrown at him. Now, what could we do about a stone? The young man wrote to the Rebbe: “Since a stone was thrown at me, should I get a license for a handgun?” What, just like that? The Rebbe wrote to him, “If it’s dangerous, don’t go there at all.” They say the Rebbe was very stringent about danger. What followed from all that is well known. They asked the Rebbe to establish a yeshiva to revive Hebron. There’s no need to elaborate on Chabad’s connection to Hebron. He said, “If you’re thinking about going back and things like that, do you want me to do something more?”

1:59:47 Speaker 9 The Rebbe’s answers to Ariel Sharon and Geulah Cohen. But in any case, you wrote, and the Rebbe said to consult with friends, and then—

1:59:54 Speaker 10 To consult with three friends.

1:59:56 Speaker 9 Mm-hmm.

1:59:56 Speaker 10 [unclear], a rabbi. And they all said, “We envy you. What a privilege! Go, and may you succeed.”

2:00:02 Speaker 9 And then you arrived here and started things here. A community was established, and today there are institutions here.

2:00:10 Speaker 10 We were fewer than ten people, ten families. We had no shul, no Sefer Torah, nothing. We really started from scratch, working at it. Today, our community in Emanuel has a hundred, a hundred and thirty Chabad families. Think of the sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, great-grandchildren, grandchildren. I think we’re the largest community in Emanuel.

2:00:37 Speaker 9 And Emanuel itself is growing too, bli ayin hara. I drove through here, and you can see it growing, bli ayin hara.

2:00:40 Speaker 10 Boruch Hashem, there’s already a boys’ school and a girls’ school. There’s also [unclear]. Yes, and there are preschools. Everything Chabad needs is here. Everything, everything. It’s very close to the center. Yes.

2:00:59 Speaker 9 Was there any response from the Rebbe to the development of the Chabad House here, to the shlichus, or...?

2:01:05 Speaker 10 Yes, this is how it started. The whole idea of a Chabad House, of shlichus, wasn’t widely known yet. The first time I traveled from Emanuel to the Rebbe, I saw the Rebbe distributing bottles of mashke, apparently to people who had institutions or something like that. I don’t remember why he was distributing them. I stood in line, thinking: I’m one of the first people here. We have a growing community. It would be nice to get mashke from the Rebbe, to farbreng and grow. Fine, I approach. The Rebbe doesn’t give me mashke.

2:01:46 Speaker 9 Kos shel bracha.

2:01:47 Speaker 10 No, not a bottle of mashke.

2:01:49 Speaker 9 At a farbrengen.

2:01:50 Speaker 10 A bottle, a small bottle.

2:01:51 Speaker 9 No, there were bottles at kos shel bracha too.

2:01:55 Speaker 10 Apparently, yes. He didn’t give me the bottle, so I understood that I wasn’t entitled to one. I was getting ready to move on. Rabbi Groner saved the situation. Ah! I said no. The Rebbe looked at me as if to say—

2:02:08 Speaker 9 What do you want?

2:02:08 Speaker 10 “Who do you need it for?” I said, “Chabad Emanuel.” “Chabad Emanuel” didn’t mean anything to the Rebbe. So Rabbi Groner corrected it. He said, “Chabad House Emanuel.” “Ah, Chabad House Emanuel”—and the Rebbe gave me one. So I came back, and that sign you saw downstairs—of course, it’s been replaced since then.

2:02:25 Speaker 9 Yes.

2:02:26 Speaker 10 I climbed a ladder and put it up on the wall.

2:02:29 Speaker 9 A sign saying there’s a Chabad House here.

2:02:30 Speaker 10 A Chabad House. And we rented the apartment downstairs and started the Chabad House. Afterward we went to Tzach, arranged the formalities, and we’ve had a Chabad House ever since. We were the only Chabad House in all of Shomron. There was something in Ariel too. Yes, that was it. Today, boruch Hashem, there are shluchim everywhere. I also remember something very interesting. I wanted to go out on mivtzoim, and there were a lot of soldiers here in Shomron then. Not like today.

2:02:59 Speaker 9 Families.

2:03:00 Speaker 10 Not families—the army.

2:03:02 Speaker 9 There were army families?

2:03:03 Speaker 10 No, not families. Soldiers.

2:03:04 Speaker 9 No, I’m asking whether there are fewer soldiers today?

2:03:06 Speaker 10 Certainly. They’ve reduced the numbers. Back then, all the new recruits and so on were here. Anyway.

2:03:12 Speaker 9 Now they’ve moved them all south.

2:03:14 Speaker 10 Why? Because now this is considered the territories. I don’t know. There are only those needed to guard the area. I don’t know. In short, we had plenty to do. Now, I needed to go out on mivtzoim. Maybe I had one Chabad guy with me for the mivtzoim, and a few other fellows to leave behind. So what do I do? I open the window after we’ve lit at home, and I see a Sephardi yungerman walking down the street, probably on his way to kollel. I say to him, “Listen, do you want to come with us on mivtzoim?” He says, “Oh, that sounds wonderful! I want to see what it’s like. I’ve heard about it. I’d be very happy to.” “But I need to tell them at home.” I say, “Go on, let them know.” So he lets his family know and comes with us. We reach the bypass road. They were building and paving the Qalqilya bypass then. It wasn’t asphalted yet, but cars were already driving on it. There was some kind of Arab building there, and three soldiers sat on top of it, changing shifts every eight hours. There was a checkpoint there. And how those soldiers welcomed us! “Ah! Look at this!” one soldier shouts. “It’s the third night, and we still haven’t lit!” It was cold and rainy. We would come with mashke, and—

2:04:39 Speaker 11 That was allowed then.

2:04:40 Speaker 10 The army allowed it. Apparently there weren’t rules against it yet. Soon it would become a problem. So we get out and tell him, “Here, we brought you a menorah too, so you’ll have one for the rest of Chanukah.” “Oh, wonderful! There’s nothing like Chabad.” So we climb up the ladder, light with them, and they say, “What about doughnuts?” I say, “Wait.” I go back down. I had warmed every single doughnut in the oven and wrapped it in foil. Yes, each one.

2:05:04 Speaker 11 You put effort into it.

2:05:05 Speaker 10 I did, yes. Why? Because I’d bought doughnuts, and they had to last another day, two days, three days. I wasn’t going to Bnei Brak to buy them every day. So I would warm them in the oven there. Anyway, we danced and sang, and it was all lovely. On the way back, I say to that yungerman, “Listen, tell me something. This is your first time, right?” He says, “Yes.” “Tell me something. I’m very interested—

2:05:32 Speaker 11 How you see it.

2:05:33 Speaker 10 Exactly, how you see it. He says to me, “What do you mean, how do I see it? Listen, I’m a kollel yungerman. I don’t have much money, but I did everything I could to make my lighting as mehudar as possible: a silver menorah, olive oil of course, and lighting at precisely the right time. I brought gifts for the children. After I’d done all that, that was it. We sat and ate doughnuts. Now I’m on my way to kollel, and suddenly you take me out on mivtzoim. Suddenly I discovered that all my hiddurim are worth nothing. How can it be that a soldier is sitting a short distance from here, wanting to light, and they haven’t lit? Next time, my hiddur will be to light and then go with you.”

2:06:19 Speaker 11 Wow.

2:06:20 Speaker 10 “To go with you—because that soldier wants to light some candles, even those big, colored ones.”

2:06:25 Speaker 11 The Rebbe’s influence on the community of Torah scholars.

2:06:28 Speaker 10 What?

2:06:28 Speaker 11 On the way a Jew looks at things. Yes, today, boruch Hashem, they too have learned the Rebbe’s approach: to care for others.

2:06:36 Speaker 10 It’s well known that Chabad is always first to jump in and...

2:06:39 Speaker 11 Boruch Hashem. Wonderful. May Hashem help you live many long years, continuing to lead your community.

2:06:44 Speaker 10 Amen.

2:06:45 Speaker 11 May Chabad continue to grow in Emanuel and throughout Shomron, along with the Tanya classes everywhere, and may we soon see the Rebbe again. When was the last time you saw the Rebbe in person?

2:06:56 Speaker 10 5752.

2:06:57 Speaker 11 At the Kinus Hashluchim.

2:06:58 Speaker 10 No, wait, wait. 5753, when he came out onto the balcony and the representative from Ukraine arrived. You know, the banquet was at—

2:07:13 Speaker 11 At the banquet in [unclear].

2:07:14 Speaker 10 At the banquet in [unclear]. The Rebbe came out especially, and the representative from Ukraine spoke in English. He said, “We’re delighted that the great rabbi is from Ukraine. He fled,” and so on. And there was another moment here that I’m glad you mentioned, so we’ll remember it. Yes, the last time I saw the Rebbe was when we were at the Joe Center, where we shluchim were studying.

2:07:46 Speaker 11 You’ll see.

2:07:47 Speaker 10 And Rabbi Groner promised us—“You’ll see.” He promised us, “As soon as it’s possible, we’ll bring the Rebbe out to the entrance of his room—

2:07:57 Speaker 11 [unclear]

2:07:57 Speaker 10 “And you’ll pass by in a line. He’ll look at each of you individually and bless each of you.” And that’s what we did. The moment they told us, we started running along Eastern Parkway. Who was going to pay attention to a red light or a traffic sign? We ran like mad, because who knew how long they would keep it going? We stood in line and passed by quickly, quickly, quickly. When my turn came, I was just a few inches from the Rebbe, and without thinking I blurted out, “Refuah shleimah.” The Rebbe gave me a look and raised his brow a little, as if to say, “Don’t make a big thing of it.” It reminded me a little of the Rebbe Rashab saying to the Frierdiker Rebbe, “Mochin, mochin.” That’s what it reminded me of. Then I saw the Rebbe raise his hand like this, and tilt his head toward his shoulder. They closed it, they closed it. That was it. I may have been among the last. I went outside, and the fellows were dancing, with tears in their eyes. Yes.

2:09:11 Speaker 3 With Hashem’s help, we’ll return and see the Rebbe again, [unclear].

2:09:13 Speaker 10 Amen, amen, amen.

2:09:14 Speaker 3 And may we see the Geulah with our own eyes.

2:09:16 Speaker 10 With Hashem’s help.

2:09:16 Speaker 3 May we carry out our shlichus and bring the Rebbe back soon.

2:09:19 Speaker 10 Amen, amen, amen.

2:09:20 Speaker 3 With great strength.