Nurse Mania, the Wool Coat and Listening to a Rebbe

Agut Voch, welcome to our weekly program, Historical Treasures of Chabad in America through the Mindel Archives.

We already mentioned in the previous programs who Manya was. Manya was the nurse of the Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah. She was later the nurse of the Frierdiker Rebbe. But by us, she was known as the nurse of the Frierdiker Rebbe even before Shterna Sarah. And this is how the Frierdiker Rebbe became in touch with her: in 1939, in Riga, the Frierdiker Rebbe had to be in a nursing home for a short while, and Manya — she was not married then — was a nurse there in that place. So the Frierdiker Rebbe got to know her, and then the Frierdiker Rebbe asked her to come with him on the boat to America to be a nurse to the Frierdiker Rebbe's mother, Shterna Sarah.

I want to tell you about Manya a little bit. Manya was living — they had a room upstairs in 770 — she had a room with Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah. And she was very close to the Rebbetzin, to Rebbetzin Nechama Dina, to Chana, to Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. She was like a sister to them, and she was like a daughter to the Frierdiker Rebbe. As we mentioned, when the Frierdiker Rebbe brought presents, he also gave her one.

Manya was also very close to my father-in-law, to Rabbi Nissan Mindel. So when she got married later — and by the way, the Frierdiker Rebbe made the shidduch — she moved to Long Beach. Rabbi Mindel lived in Long Beach, New York, so they were very close — the whole family was very close to my father-in-law.

Two weeks before Yud Shevat, Tashi Yud, before the histalkus of the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe called Manya over and said, "I want to give you a matanah, a present. I want to give you my coat that I wore in Riga. I don't need it anymore," he said. She said, "Okay, thank you very much," and she kept the coat always as a matanah from the Frierdiker Rebbe.

Years later, she moved to Israel. Before she moved to Israel — and by the way, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka was not that pleased that she was going to Israel, because I think she was probably the closest person to the Rebbetzin. They went shopping together, they spoke on the phone together, she came to visit all the time. They spoke in Russian, by the way. But she asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said she could move.

So she came over to me and said, "You know, Sholom Ber, I have the matanah that the Frierdiker Rebbe gave me. I'm not going to take it to Eretz Yisroel. I want to give you this matanah." I said, "Okay." So she gave me the coat. In the coat I found little cigarettes that the Frierdiker Rebbe used to smoke.

Now, this coat I had in my possession here in Tashmah, at the time of the matter of the seforim, when the Rebbe spoke very strongly about people who have the Frierdiker Rebbe's belongings — that it's like having a bomb in the house. I felt that I had the coat of the Frierdiker Rebbe, so I wanted to give it back to the Rebbe.

My father-in-law used to go in to the Rebbe three times a week — and we will discuss this another time — to take dictation of the letters. He knew shorthand; the Rebbe would dictate to him, and then he went home and composed those letters, and we'll talk about that another time. Here is the notebook that he used to bring in — I have hundreds of these notebooks — this is the shorthand that he used when he went in to the Rebbe.

So before he went to the Rebbe, he would come to my home — he usually used to do that. So I said, "Do me a favor — the Rebbe said that whoever has such belongings, it's like a bomb, please give it back to the Rebbe. I don't want it." He didn't understand why — this was a matanah to me — but I just couldn't have the coat.

When he went in to the Rebbe for dictation, he never wanted to bother the Rebbe with his personal yechidus — never. When it came to his personal yechidus, he always used to write to the Rebbe. But this time he saw how strongly I felt, so he said, "Okay, give me the coat." I gave him the coat. He went to 770, he put it in Merkos. He went in to the Rebbe for dictation, and at the end, when they finished, he said to the Rebbe that Sholom Ber had given him the coat of the Frierdiker Rebbe as a matanah, and it was now in Merkos — the Rebbe had spoken about it being like a bomb, and he's afraid to have it in the house.

So the Rebbe smiled and said to him, "Tell him, I didn't mean him — I didn't mean this." And then the Rebbe not only told me that I could take it back, but he even gave me brachas that I should take it back.

Another story with Manya. In Tashlaz, when the Rebbe had a heart attack, it was on Yom Tov, Shemini Atzeres. The doctors came; the Rebbe didn't want to go to the hospital. The doctors told him he had to go to the hospital. Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka was there too, and she knew that if the Rebbe didn't want to go, he wouldn't go. She said, "I need Manya here — I need Manya to come in to the Rebbe."

So somehow Manya came, and she went into the room to the Rebbe. She was close to the Rebbe from years back, so I guess she could speak to the Rebbe differently than a chossid could speak to the Rebbe. She said to the Rebbe, "Rebbe, you always say that we should listen to doctors — the doctors tell you to go to the hospital, why don't you go?" That's how she spoke to the Rebbe.

So the Rebbe told her, "I want to ask you a question. If the doctors tell you to do something, and I tell you something else, who would you listen to?" She said, "The Rebbe." "So listen." That's it. Manya could do this because Manya was a balabusta, an insider, in the house.

Talking about Manya — as I said before, she lived in Long Beach. So when my father-in-law used to come to a farbrengen — this was Yud Shevat, two years after I was married — she asked my father-in-law, "Drop me off by the Rebbetzin, I'll be there till two in the morning." The Rebbe used to farbreng until two, three in the morning. "And after the farbrengen, come and pick me up and take me back home to Long Beach."

That's what he did — he dropped her off by Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, parked the car, and went to the farbrengen. Then he came home, came to my house, and asked me for a favor: "I have to pick up Manya — can you take the car and go pick her up?" I said, "Okay."

I was there — I was 25 years old. I came to the house, knocked on the door. The Rebbetzin opened the door, and she saw me — she spoke to me in English, I don't know why. She said, "Come in." I was a young man, I was a little nervous. I came in and said, "I'm here to pick up Manya." She said, "Just a minute," and went to the back and told Manya that somebody was there to pick her up.

While Manya was getting ready, the Rebbetzin came back to the door to speak with me. She said, "Come in — how is the family?" And she asked me my name, who I was, and I told her. We spoke a little bit — I was very nervous. In the middle of speaking with her, I felt for an envelope in my pocket — it was $30 — and I didn't feel it. I was in the Rebbe's house, so I said, "I hope I didn't leave anything here," and I was looking around. She saw me looking around, and I couldn't find the envelope. So I said, "I hope I didn't leave anything here." She smiled at me and said, "Of course you left — you left a very good impression."

This is the Rebbetzin. This is what the Rebbetzin was — this was her fine quality — she was "kol kevudah bas melech pnimah," all the glory of the king's daughter is within. She was an inside person — she didn't have too many friends — but she was an inside person. She was very, very proper. I was a young man, and the way she acted toward me was amazing.

What is the lesson that we can learn here? [unclear] And here I want to end off with a mayseh.

My father-in-law had a problem with his ear when he was a young bochur, when he was in Torah Vodaas, where Rabbi [unclear] was the principal. There was a boy who hit him in the ear, and he had problems all the time — not only couldn't he hear well in one ear, but he had to eat every three hours. He went to doctors, and he had to eat every three hours.

Before Tisha B'Av, he went to the Frierdiker Rebbe and said to the Rebbe, "What should I do on Tisha B'Av? If I fast, I faint." On Yom Kippur he used to stay home, because he didn't ask about eating — of course he fasted. But on Tisha B'Av he thought he would ask the Frierdiker Rebbe what to do. So the Frierdiker Rebbe said to him, "Ask a rav." And before he walked out, he called him back and said, "Ask a smart rav."

So, one Erev Tisha B'Av, his rav was Rabbi Shmuel Levitin. He went over to Rabbi Levitin and told him, "I have a problem on Tisha B'Av — I asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe told me I should ask a rav, what should I do? The Rebbe said, ask a smart rav." So Rabbi Levitin told him, "If the Rebbe says ask a smart rav, you can eat on Tisha B'Av after chatzos."

A few years later — maybe it was in the '50s — it still bothered him that he ate on Tisha B'Av. So he went to the Rebbe, our Rebbe, and said to the Rebbe, "It bothers me that I eat on Tisha B'Av — I have to eat, and the Frierdiker Rebbe told me to ask a rav, and the rav said [I could eat] — it still bothers me." So the Rebbe told him, as the shver zogt — as my father-in-law, the Frierdiker Rebbe, says — "Darf men fregn, un divrei tzaddikim kayomim la'ad." One needs to ask, and the words of tzaddikim are forever and ever. When a tzaddik says something, it is forever.

Now, we mentioned before about the coat of the Frierdiker Rebbe, so I do want to show you the coat of the Frierdiker Rebbe. This is the coat I got, the present from Manya, that the Frierdiker Rebbe gave to her. And inside here there is a label that says "Rav Schneerson" — this was made in Riga, it says Riga here. So this is the coat — sometimes we show it to a chosson.

I hope that this program will strengthen our connection with the Rebbe. Moshiach now. A gutten voch.