Things the Rebbe Accomplished in the Early Years in the USA

Welcome to our weekly program, the inside story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel archives.

A few weeks ago in Chabad, because of the pandemic, there was a farbrengen with elter Chassidim on Zoom, and they shared different stories, different experiences that they had in those days. Some Chassidim spoke about the inyan of Yud Shvat, and it was clear to everybody that the Rebbe was going to be the Rebbe, although for the whole year they didn't know — there were a lot of things going on, so they didn't know. But they were all saying that it was clear that it was going to be the Rebbe.

Some remembered that the farbrengens in those days were upstairs in the shul; there was no downstairs. There was the small zal — only maybe sixty people could fit there — and they said many more people fit in. Some people said it was like sardines, maybe hundreds of people were there.

Some of them also shared that they remembered the levaya of the Frierdiker Rebbe, the aron, how they carried the aron. And by the way, when we're speaking about the levaya — yes, I want to share with you — there was [a person, name unclear] who was maybe over a hundred. I heard once he said that they had to move the kever of the Rebbe Rashab, the father of the Frierdiker Rebbe — they had to move it, I don't know why, a few years after he passed away. He was [unclear] and he was one of the people who were there. I think they got a heter from the Rebbe that they should not go to mikveh that day, I remember. So he said that they opened up the cave and they saw that the Rebbe Rashab, after all those years, his face, his whole body, was preserved a hundred percent. And there's a maamer Chazal that they mentioned, I remember, that says when a tzaddik passes away, the body doesn't decompose.

As people remember from the levaya of the Frierdiker Rebbe — one Chossid said that he walked into 770 on Purim, and the Frierdiker Rebbe was looking around, probably looking for a minyan. There were only seven people — not like now, now there's no problem finding a minyan at 770, but in those days it wasn't so easy. So he walked into 770, and there the Rebbe was standing and looking for people, and he walked in, and with him they needed three more people. He remembers that — that's one of the things.

And one person said he remembers what the Rebbe was wearing — that the Rebbe put on his sirtuk first and then [put on his tefillin] — and they were discussing when this was. This is one of the things that was mentioned there.

Also, about the bimah — that the Rebbe didn't want a bimah at the first farbrengen. He wanted to sit on the same level as everybody; he didn't want a stage.

Also somebody said he remembers — the topic shifted later — I also remember, from the Six Day War, that everybody was very worried about Israel, and the way the Rebbe was then was so strong — the farbrengen was very strong, and the Rebbe gave everyone hope about the war; he was very positive. And then I also remember — I have a friend, I think he got married that week — he was supposed to get married, so he was here, he was supposed to go to the wedding, but he didn't know what to do. So the Rebbe told him, "Don't worry, you should go and you'll be fine" — and this was, I think, before the war. Can you imagine that — he told him, "sure," and there was a wedding, there was a chuppah, anyway.

Also they were talking about the announcement — it wasn't in [a certain paper], it was in the Morgen Zhurnal, it was in a paper. So when did they write that the Rebbe would become the Rebbe? Did they write it in [Hamodia], or did they report that there was going to be a whole farbrengen? They didn't know, but I can tell you — I do know, because I have some clippings from that time — that it was on Motzaei Shabbos.

Someone also mentioned a very interesting thing — that his father wrote a letter to the Frierdiker Rebbe asking whether he should move, and the Frierdiker Rebbe was unable to answer himself, so he took the letter and went and knocked on the Rebbe's door, and he knocked, and he read the letter, and he said he wanted the answer from the Rebbe, and he called him "Rebbe" — and the Rebbe, you know, didn't say anything. This is another story.

They also asked the Rebbe about having the farbrengen in a hall, because at the first farbrengen there would be so many people. The Rebbe didn't want that, but [the organizers] wanted to have the first farbrengen there. There were many more things that were spoken about then, and also — this was the episode as it was spoken then.

I would like to add something here that was not said at the Zoom farbrengen. Of course I wasn't there, but I saw it in the notes of my father-in-law, because he came with the Frierdiker Rebbe, and he saw the Rebbe when the Rebbe walked into 770 for the first time. He worked with the Rebbe from 1941 on, and he considered the Rebbe his older brother. He said — and Rabbi Groner [?], at a farbrengen, repeated this from Rabbi Mindel — that as soon as he saw the Rebbe come to America the first time, he said, "This is a Rebbe." The Rebbe didn't outwardly look like a typical Rebbe — he had a white jacket, a white hat — he didn't look it, but you could see that this is a Rebbe. Besides that, there was his modesty, his dignity, the way he spoke to people, the way he carried himself, the way he walked, the way he looked — his eyes — you could see right away that there was a sign that the Rebbe would be the Rebbe.

I don't know why this wasn't mentioned — excuse me, I know people know it — but I heard from my father-in-law that the Frierdiker Rebbe had told someone to go be mekabel ponim, to greet, to meet "my son-in-law, the Ramash, who wears his hat like this, and his gartel, and who is expert in the whole Talmud — Bavli, Yerushalmi — with all the meforshim, and Zohar, and Kabbalah, and everything." This is what the Frierdiker Rebbe said in describing that person. So we can imagine that right away you could see who the Rebbe was, without even wondering whether he was going to be the Rebbe or not. And that's why Rabbi Nemtsov [?] — [said to be] the father of Rabbi Mindel — couldn't hold himself back at the first farbrengen, and pushed forward, because he knew right away that this is the Rebbe, and that the Rebbe had to say a maamer.

Also, at that first farbrengen, some people saw — Rabbi Mindel['s brother [?]] — standing in the back and taking pictures of the first farbrengen. In those days, the Rebbe didn't let people take pictures at all — as a matter of fact, he even took away some people's cameras — but him he did let. So he took some pictures of the first farbrengen. In any case —

So what was not mentioned, and this is from the notes: in those days, in 1940, it wasn't like today. The test of Shmiras Shabbos was very big — a person had to work on Shabbos; if you didn't work on Shabbos, Friday was your last day. They gave people pink slips. There was one person who had so many pink slips that he hung them up as a decoration, to show everybody how many pink slips he had. It was a different time. The Rebbe took that upon himself as a real challenge. They gave him a task, and the Frierdiker Rebbe came to America to break the ice in America. The Frierdiker Rebbe wasn't well, he was sick, he was broken. So who did all the work? The Rebbe, with the guidance of the Frierdiker Rebbe, who could tell him exactly what to do — but who actually did all the work? To take America — the word "America" comes from "Am Reika," an empty nation — and to change America, who did it? The Rebbe. In the ten years before the Nesius, the Rebbe established, he put Chabad on its feet. The Rebbe — the whole thing — he started it. Who did all this? Only the Rebbe. This was not mentioned. You could see right away who the Rebbe was.

Besides that — excuse me — the Rebbe went to Manhattan a few times a week to see Dr. Alexander [?], who was a big doctor — I think he was on [Western Avenue] [?], it's written — and the refugees, after the war, in '44, '45, came, and they were sick, and the Rebbe became [a source of encouragement] — to encourage them, to speak with them, to see how they were. He spent time with that. And the other area was education and publication, and this is how the Rebbe started, with Rabbi Mindel, to write — because Chassidus was a closed book; the Tanya was written in Hebrew, and people didn't know Hebrew, so they had to translate the Tanya into English. They needed Rabbi Mindel to work with the Rebbe, with the sources, and this was all in the early '60s. When the first copy of the English Tanya came out, he gave it to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said — they made such a tumult about the Sputnik, so there should be the reverse — they should make a tumult that the first English Tanya came out. Before that there was "Talks and Tales" — this is what the Rebbe started, the Rebbe started with Rabbi Mindel, the "Talks and Tales."

Remember, we used to give out — before "Talks and Tales" — the "Sayings of the Frierdiker Rebbe," but the Rebbe himself gathered it and put it together, a saying every day for children. The "Ten Commandments" [booklet] — he asked Rabbi Mindel — this was after the war, people needed this, so he had to write the Ten Commandments. This was all the Rebbe's doing — the memoirs, "Our People" — these were all Rebbe projects. How much work the Rebbe put in — this all shows you what the Rebbe did in ten years. This was not mentioned.

"Released Time" was another project — there's a lot, I mean we have no time now to speak about all of it. As I mentioned, there was a class in Manhattan that [Alexander Kohanu?] gave, and the Rebbe and the Frierdiker Rebbe were very interested — he gave the class for all the lawyers, and the Rebbe sent Rabbi Mindel there to see how the class went, and he needed a report. Then the Rebbe wrote answers to what they asked — questions about Hashem. This was all done by the Rebbe. The telegrams, representing — being mindful of — the soldiers [in the service]. And on top of all that, the Rebbe had to make a living, so he went to the Navy Yard to work, to make an honest living. This was something that was not said.

So I wanted to mention this about the first ten years — there's much more, but there's no time today. But I do want to say one thing — that among all the things the Rebbe wanted, was for the Shulchan Aruch HaRav to be printed; he wrote a lot of marei mekomos for this, and I don't know why it was never finished.

Now, since we are before Yud Alef Nissan, that's why I mention this now — the connection of all this with kosher Pesach. So I want to give a bracha, as we often say, that we should have a kosher Pesach. We say "kosher Pesach" — why kosher? Because Pesach is so important that, as much as you clean, you still need a bracha that it should be kosher. And we should go from this geulas Nissan to the geulah.

We're not going to have a program now, so we'll have the next program, b'ezras Hashem, after Pesach. A gutten Yom Tov.