How the Rebbe’s Letters Were Written

Transcript

Welcome to our weekly program, "The Inside Story of Chabad in America," through the Mindel archives. This program is a continuation of last week — it's the second part, l'kavod Gimmel Tammuz.

I want this program to review a little bit, as I mentioned about maybe a year ago, how the letters of the Rebbe came about, how they were written, and what happened in the room when Rabbi Mindel came in three times a week. What happened there in the room while he was working on the letters with the Rebbe? When people ask me, "Did dictation ever — did the Rebbe write the letters?" — what went on, and this was about, I think, around 50 years that he was doing this.

While he was in the room, no secretary could walk in. Now, sometimes Rabbi Hodakov, Rabbi Klein, Rabbi Groner used to knock on the door in the middle of the day if there was an emergency or whatever it was, but while Rabbi Mindel was in the room taking dictation — that hour, hour and a half — nobody was in the room. This is all from the notes of Rabbi Mindel. Nobody ever came into the room. I don't know whether it was the air from the left or not, but it didn't happen that way.

Rabbi Mindel went in three times a week — Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. When you walked in, many times the Rebbe was sitting and writing or learning without a kapote, in [unclear], without a hat, with a yarmulke. So when he came in for the letters, the Rebbe got up and the Rebbe put on a hat. In other words, letters were something serious — it was like a yechidus, that's how he used to sit. I don't know whether he wore a gartel or not, but this was a serious time — a time of answering letters.

The Rebbe opened up every single letter, and the Rebbe said it in Yiddish — he dictated it. The Rebbe did not write the letters, whether it's the Igros in Hebrew or whether it's in English, the Rebbe did not write it. The Rebbe opened up the letter, he said in Yiddish how he answered, and then Rabbi Mindel wrote it down — he knew shorthand. Now, these are the pads — these are the pads, I have hundreds of them — that he used, his shorthand. All these letters are in there that he wrote in shorthand. So he wrote it down, and then he went home and composed the letter. Let's say it was maybe 50 letters at a time — he composed them, and the next time when he went in he brought it back to the Rebbe. The Rebbe looked it over, and sometimes the Rebbe erased things, made notations, and then they had to type it over again, and then it was sent to the people. This is how it went for all the letters, whether in English.

Now, while the Rebbe was dictating, after he finished every letter, he said to Rabbi Mindel, "This letter you should answer in Yiddish, this letter in Hebrew, this letter in Russian, this letter in English" — only four languages. People wrote in all different languages — Spanish, French, yes — but the Rebbe only [specified] when he told them to answer, because some people don't know Hebrew, so it wasn't answered in Yiddish. But the Rebbe himself spoke only Yiddish — like by the Frierdiker Rebbe, you know the story, when he was with the GPU, when there was a gun on the table, so they asked him if he could speak in Russian, he says, "No, I only speak Yiddish." That's the way it is — the Rebbe only spoke Yiddish.

Now, how did the Rebbe read a letter? He put his finger like this, and people wrote, let's say, a page or two pages like that — you read it like that, then you turn the page again like that. That's how he read. What would take us ten minutes took him half a minute, and we're talking here about very important letters.

But that's how they read the letters. And that's how Rabbi Mindel writes in his introduction to the Igros Kodesh — the same thing, every "Maaneh Lashon," let's say, came out — the one by Rabbi Nissan [Mindel], before Pesach came a letter, before Sukkos flourish, before Rosh Hashanah came out with a letter — all of this was written by Rabbi Mindel.

Now, the Rebbe did not write it word for word. As you see, the Rebbe, the farbrengen, the Hanhalah, they reviewed the [unclear], then they wrote it down, then they sent it to the Rebbe. The Rebbe was magiha [reviewing it as editor] — the Rebbe wrote notations, looked it over, and the Rebbe okayed it. Then they typed it, and it became an Igros Kodesh. But it's not that the Rebbe wrote it word for word — I think the Rebbe wrote certain things, but otherwise the Rebbe spoke, and that's how it went. That's how the letters went all these years.

From the time the Rebbetzin passed away — six years later is Gimmel Tammuz — these six years were a big change by the Rebbe. It changed in many things, and I'll just say a few. Number one: from the time the Rebbetzin passed away, the Rebbe stopped farbrenging except for Yud Shevat [?], which probably used to bring — this, Kiddush Levana, all night, I mean all night, I mean two, three in the morning, yechidus — that's one change. Shabbos farbrengens also [changed] — not long; in the summertime it used to be long, [now] it was short — that's the farbrengen. And also the letters changed.

The letters were not regular, and like Rabbi Mindel used to walk in — used to go in twice a week or three times a week — that changed. So, for example, Rabbi Groner writes here that the letters, let's say a certain kind of communal letter, the Rebbe would call Rabbi Groner [in] and the Rebbe told him — with previous letters that was done, and that was done by Rabbi Mindel. With previous letters, he says, he gave him an outline, I don't know exactly what, and then that letter he would compose, and he wrote it, and this was done — but the Rebbe told him, he writes here, "Before you do anything, before you send it out, you have to check it with Rabbi Mindel." So he called Rabbi Mindel — sometimes Rabbi Mindel subtitled [corrected] it, said, "This wasn't done right, it was not good"; sometimes he told them it's okay. But it had to be checked by Rabbi Mindel — all the letters.

Thousands of people throughout the years wrote to the Rebbe — thousands, besides Chabad people. People wrote from all over the world, different people wrote to the Rebbe. Let's say — I want to say, because I have those letters, some of them are interesting — some people were called Misnagdim, who were not in favor of the Rebbe in certain things, and some of their letters weren't even opened. They wrote to the Rebbe when they needed, when there was something serious. Some of them didn't have children — they begged for a bracha. Some of them had their own problems they wanted to show him. Some of them had emunah problems, and we know, in faith — we're talking about people who were in distress — when it really came that they really needed it, they wrote to the Rebbe.

Many people that became baalei teshuva, and some of them write that their Chabad [experiences] made them [grow in] value, but they had questions in emunah, and they didn't get a hundred percent answer to satisfy them — but they wrote to the Rebbe. Ashkenazim, Reform people, Conservative people, Russian [rabbis?], rabbis wrote — and the Rebbe answered each and every one. Whether they wrote about — lawyers wrote about law, and he answered; scientists wrote about science; [unclear] wrote about [unclear] — it was full of everything. Even presidents, kings, prime ministers, mayors, senators wrote — everyone — thousands of letters, and he answered each one.

People [wrote for] business advice, and the Rebbe said — and this is what Rabbi Mindel writes — "If it's important enough for a person to write to me, I always considered it important enough to answer. Should the person need help, the Rebbe would certainly wish to help." The Rebbe didn't ignore him or her — this is the way of Chabad, the way of the Rebbe, to help each and every one. Everyone wrote to the Rebbe and the Rebbe answered. And sometimes it happened that the Rebbe did not answer — that was also an answer, which I will not go into now.

Now, before I finish, I want to give one example of a child that wrote to the Rebbe, because children wrote to the Rebbe and [people thought] he never had time to answer them — but this is what a parent of that child told me. In one of the big cities in America, all schools — a ten-and-a-half or eleven-year-old boy was in the house, and he overheard his father telling his mother that the child is staying home because the father cannot afford to pay tuition, so he cannot go to school. The school told him he cannot attend unless he pays — I don't know why he didn't pay, I don't know — but he was home. He overheard his father telling the mother, and he sat down and wrote a letter to the Rebbe: "I am ten and a half years old. My father told my mother that I cannot go to school because he cannot pay tuition."

Whatever the child wrote, the Rebbe got the answer. The Rebbe called Rabbi Hodakov and said, right away, he should call up the [principal/menahel — unclear], and the Rebbe was very upset — I'm not going to say what he said — but he said, "Every child must be in yeshiva. You should call him right away, speak to the principal, whatever happened, but the boy has to be in yeshiva. They have to take him in." And the Rebbe said, "I need an answer in fifteen, twenty minutes." So right away he went to the principal, or whatever, and the boy was [enrolled] in yeshiva. I don't know what happened later when they worked it out.

And the Rebbe said, "You are never, ever" — this was very telling — "you are not allowed to refuse any child because of tuition. You can speak things over, you can work it out, but the child has nothing to do with it." This is very important, and this was also [part of how the Rebbe] answered about a child writing a letter.

So, therefore, I want to end off here. The rest, next week, I want to say — and I want to mention it now — that people used to write letters about what they need: "I need this, I need this." But the Rebbe always replied, "You always have to know who needs you" — so that nobody should only be [a recipient]; it should also be [a giver], that people should help others — this is the work of the Rebbe, as Mr. Shem [?] — next week we will continue. Our Thursday night program — thank you.