Frierdiker Rebbe’s Other Comment Upon Arriving in America

Welcome to our weekly program, "The Inside Story of Chabad in America," through the Mindel archives.

This Shabbos, this coming Shabbos, is Yud Shvat — we're getting closer to Yud Shvat, the histalkus of the Frierdiker Rebbe, and this year is 70 years since the histalkus of the Frierdiker Rebbe. So I want to share with you the next three programs until Yud Shvat — notes of Rabbi Mindel, that the Frierdiker Rebbe told him to put down some of his sayings, some of the sichos, some things that the Frierdiker Rebbe told him. He said, "Since you're a writer" — he translated the memoirs — so anyway, he told him to put down some sayings. So I'm going to read from inside some things that the Frierdiker Rebbe said.

Now, Rabbi Mindel showed this to Rabbi Groner years ago, and Rabbi Groner wanted to take a copy, or he wrote it down — so maybe, maybe he wrote it somewhere also, I don't know, maybe. But this all comes from Rabbi Mindel, that he wrote down the notes that reflect what the Rebbe told him.

Also, as you know, Rabbi Mindel came on the boat with the Frierdiker Rebbe to America, and the ten years the Frierdiker Rebbe was here, he was almost with the Frierdiker Rebbe almost every day. So when he came home at night, he wrote down everything — what happened with the Rebbe, with the Frierdiker Rebbe. So he has notes, and I'm going to read some of the notes that he wrote, what the Frierdiker Rebbe said or what the Frierdiker Rebbe told him.

Now, most of the people today — I mean, they were probably very young when the Frierdiker Rebbe was here — many people are... I don't think people remember things. But Rabbi Mindel wrote down everything, and everything is one hundred percent, because the Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe, relied on him — whatever he wrote is one hundred percent.

Now, we already mentioned in previous programs about the Frierdiker Rebbe, when he came to America, when he was on the boat from Riga — we already said that — but now I'm going to share with you some notes that I found of the sayings of the Frierdiker Rebbe when he came to America. Now, these notes are in Hebrew and Yiddish — Rabbi Mindel wrote it in small Hebrew words. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to translate this into English as much as I can.

The Frierdiker Rebbe said, "I very much did not want to come to America to settle, because people scared me that nothing can be done in America — America is a treifa medina, a treif country. But by Divine Providence, Hashem brought me here, l'ovdah u'leshomrah — to work it and to guard it — and to warm up the streets with the light of Torah, and to make America a mokom Torah."

As we spoke a few weeks ago, that he told Rabbi Hodakov on the boat, coming to America — "America is a piece of ice, and we came to break the ice of America, to make America a mokom Torah."

"The first forty-two hours," he says, "coming to America, I asked myself, Ribono Shel Olam, why did You bring me to this country?" The Frierdiker Rebbe said, "When I decided to come to America, it was not an easy decision for me to come to terms with. It was bitter and hard to leave the exile — to leave the country of Russia, to leave the Yidden in Russia — and especially to come to a culture, a cold, materialistic America."

The ten days of the trip from Riga — as I spoke once, the Frierdiker Rebbe took a plane. There was a plane of seventeen seats. The Frierdiker Rebbe, his Rebbetzin, his mother, and Rabbi Mindel, Rabbi [?] — there were eleven people, and then he filled up another few seats. And he went to Sweden, and from Sweden he took a boat to New York. So the trip from Riga to New York was about ten days. It was like — it was like a sadness.

"You made sure my heart and my decision in my way of life that, with God's help, I will have to make in my new shlichus. A few days" — this is written in Hebrew again, it's hard for me to translate here — "a few days before I left Riga, the elder chassidim told me, 'We are sure that you're not just traveling to America, but God is taking you there, whether you like it or you don't like it.'"

There were names there — I think Reb Dubin was there, or there are many names I can't read, the names here, there were names where he writes over here but they're very small — "They told me, you always have to remember about the iron chains, what it says by Yaakov Avinu." I guess what he means here is that two weeks ago we learned that Yaakov Avinu went to see Yosef his son, and if Yaakov would not want to go to Mitzrayim, they would have had to pull him with iron chains. So I guess that's what he means here.

"Maybe we are sure God is taking you to America for hard work, but we are sure God will give you much hatzlocha, and you will carry through the hard work with much success, because with you are traveling, wherever you have to travel, the souls of your holy parents and grandparents."

Another note — and this we once spoke about, that we want to mention — the Frierdiker Rebbe, you know, he came in '40 — this is the second time he was here. The second time he was here he wasn't well; he was in prison, we know, he was tortured there, he was broken, he was sick, he didn't have money, he didn't know what to do. But as we know, we spoke once that Mr. Stillman is one of the people that arranged that he should be in a hotel, the Greystone Hotel.

And on the boat, before he came, Rabbi Mindel said — and I think I mentioned it once — that the Frierdiker Rebbe's mother, Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah, cried, and she was speaking to herself, and she said, "Sorry" — the gist of it was he came to America to break the ice in 1940, and he had nothing. So she said, "You have no — you're able to, you have no service, but money, you have a lot — give my son some money."

The Frierdiker Rebbe said then: in Europe, Yidden and chassidim were not embarrassed to show their face — they wore beards, they showed their tzitzis — but here in America, some rabbonim are ashamed to show their face, their beard, and their tzitzis. And as we once spoke, he was very much concerned when he came here in 1940 about having a beard, and he said that the Nazis — they didn't mind to take pictures of people that were killed, but they did want to take pictures of how they cut their beards. This happened later, like in 1945 — the Frierdiker Rebbe mentioned that they wanted to take a picture of people — that means a beard, because their beard is hadras ponim.

"I remember in 1970, my daughter [unclear] was born — that day, my uncle, my mother's brother, with his family, came from Russia. Those days Russia was not like today — he didn't have a beard, he had to shave, he didn't want to, but he had to. So he came here, the first thing he wanted to do is go see the Rebbe. So he couldn't go in to the Rebbe, but I took him to the hall where the Rebbe came out from — it was Simchas Beis HaShoeivah. Before he — he was standing and waiting for the Rebbe to come out, to the Simchas Beis HaShoeivah — all of a sudden he covered his face like this, he was standing like this, with fear. I said, 'Tatty, what happened?' He says, 'How can I show my face to the Rebbe, I don't have a beard.'" That's how important a beard is — I mean, people were sensitive.

So this is one of the things that the Frierdiker Rebbe said coming to America — the problem here is, he said, we're embarrassed with our eidelkeit. The Frierdiker Rebbe said: a little bit of eidelkeit they give to the barber, a little bit they give to the tailor, and so on. "We have to stop being embarrassed here in America — the father, the son, the grandson all look the same." He says, young chassidim dress like chassidim, don't be ashamed. Stop trimming your beards, the ladies shouldn't stop carrying their pocketbooks on Shabbos.

And he mentioned here that the reason we — the reason we were taken out of golus Mitzrayim is because we didn't change our name — that means the name was the same name, the name was Yaakov, Yaakov, not Jacob. Also they didn't change their clothes, they wore Jewish clothes, and also they didn't change their language. And this will bring Moshiach — don't be ashamed to say the truth.

The Frierdiker Rebbe said that American Jews are mild in compassion and kindness, but what's missing is the bushah — the bashfulness. They are not embarrassed with their amaratzus, with their ignorance. Years ago, the Frierdiker Rebbe says, Yidden were embarrassed just listening to speeches or to lectures — I mean instead of learning. They learned — this is not called learning. Speeches are not learning. Learning means you have a chavrusa with a sefer, or you learn with a chavrusa with many people. But some people are yotzei with learning by hearing lectures or the telephone — I guess the same thing also he means here, let's say now, Zoom, or the lecture — people learn from Zoom, they can be yotzei like that. This is not learning.

"They could have said it here — yeah, a learning community opens up a sefer, here we have to learn, and we let the children see the way the parents sit and learn. But the lectures" — and I think he's going to say it later — "lectures is good when you drive a car and you cannot learn, so then you listen to the lectures. And there are a lot of lectures — consider that lectures, they're lecturing, but that's not called learning. It can be it's over-learning — this is not called learning. It's good when you drive, or want to relax. But we're not ashamed to say, 'I heard a shiur, a lecture,' and this is called learning."

What the Frierdiker Rebbe is saying — this is Rabbi Mindel writing here — is that the lecture is not learning for a chassid — maybe for someone who needs to become frum and has sefakos [doubts], it's okay, but not for a chossid of chassidus. In other words, all the lectures that we have are very good — it's good for people who are mekarev them, and it's good for people who have to relax or drive a car, but a chossid has to sit and learn — they shouldn't be sated with lectures.

Now I want to finish off with one more saying that the Frierdiker Rebbe said. Here the world is up there is a huha — he called it a huha, like a commotion. Once the Frierdiker Rebbe said: "Why is the sun red in the morning? In the summer, when you go somewhere in the country, you see the sun very red — why? Because when the sun makes day, you can get up from sleep, get up in the morning, and they run here, they run there — this one goes here for business — this huha, so the sun is ashamed on its face, it becomes red. This is why I created a day for this," he said.

So the Rebbe said: here in America we will live a life of distraction, meaning the person has never time. When the person wakes up in the morning from his sleep, he has no time to daven with a minyan — he comes quick, he davens quickly, and for sure he doesn't have time to learn, and he has no time for anything. Later in the afternoon he's wrapped up, he davens fast Mincha, and then Maariv, and he's in such a hurry, he has no time to learn something. At night he suddenly realizes — and he writes — "Where did the day go?" Meaning the short days. Then he falls into bed and he sleeps, and the next morning he realizes, "Where did the night go?" Even if someone lives 70 or 80 or 120 years, it's only long years, but it's not long days.

But when there is a life of peace, menuchah — meaning he gets up from his sleep, he has time to say brochos in the morning peacefully, and if he has a shiur to say Tehillim before davening, then he davens with a minyan, and he says Tehillim after davening, and he learns something. Later he davens Mincha with a minyan, learns Mishnayos, learns Ein Yaakov. Then he davens Maariv — even if he cannot learn, at least he sits and listens to a shiur, the way the Rav or the shul or somebody who learns — then he goes to sleep. Before sleeping he says Krias Shema Al HaMitah the way a Jew is supposed to. And this is called his day is a long day — these are "yomim aruchim," long days, and this means God lengthens his days and years.

One must treasure time. One can regain most things in life, except time — once time is lost, you can never get it back.

This is some of the sayings that Rabbi Mindel wrote down of the Frierdiker Rebbe. Next Thursday night will be the second program about what Rabbi Mindel wrote down from the Frierdiker Rebbe's sayings. Thank you.