Who Gave the Rebbe the Name Menachem Mendel

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America through the Mindel Archives. Today is Yud Shvat and Yud Aleph Shvat, yom hagadol hakadosh. Yud Shvat is the yahrzeit of the Frierdiker Rebbe, and Yud Aleph Shvat is the kabbolas hanesius. They are no longer here physically, the [unclear], but they are still with us in spirit, even more than before. Their influence and work is engraved in many institutions and organizations, and their saintly memories are in the hearts of thousands, millions of Yidden throughout the entire world.

And as Rabbi Mindel writes, in many generations, he writes, no Rebbe accomplished in the world and brought back Yiddishkeit and Yidden to Torah and mitzvos [as the Rebbe did]. And the Baal Shem Tov, he had to come down to this world, and he had to wake up Yiddishkeit. People were [unclear]. People will think that that's why the Baal Shem Tov's name was Yisroel. Every Jew is called Yisroel. When somebody faints, to revive him, you say his name, you can revive him. That's why Yisroel: the Baal Shem Tov revived Yiddishkeit in the [unclear].

The same thing also in our generation. Yud Shvat, the Rebbe became Rebbe. This was after the Holocaust. People were lost, people had safeikos, doubts in emunah. The Rebbe's name is [unclear]. He comforted Yidden and he brought them back to life. And that's why it's a yom [unclear]. The world would not be the same, and we're not talking about only Chabad, we're talking about everybody: Litvishe, other Chassidishe, Young Israel people, Reform, Conservative. Yiddishkeit wouldn't be the same.

And I would say that even the Rebbe spoke about Moshiach, the last things that he ever spoke, [unclear]. Everybody finishes a drasha, whether it's Chabad people or other Chassidim or Litvishe, they end off their [unclear], they say, "Hashem should help that we should deserve it, bimheira [?]." Everybody does it. And I don't know, I mean, they believe in Moshiach of course, but this is part of the speech. The Rebbe made Moshiach real, because this is what the Rebbe accomplished in this world, and [Klal] Yisroel. This is what the Rebbe wanted, his last, the last years in this world.

The Frierdiker Rebbe was selfless, his mesirus nefesh in Europe, in America. Everything for Klal Yisroel, nothing for themselves. As we know, in Russia, under the communist regime, mesirus nefesh at very dangerous times. And the Frierdiker Rebbe didn't get nispoel. He wasn't swayed. He did kashrus [?] and Shabbos and yeshivas and mikvehs under the communist regime. This is mamash sakanah. Until the Bolsheviks showed him a pistol and they put him into prison, he didn't get nispoel. And they told him to speak in Russian, and he said, "No, I only speak Yiddish." He did not get nispoel from them. This is the starkeit of the Frierdiker Rebbe. And he went out of prison and he came to America, Baruch Hashem, [unclear]. And Yud Shvat is his yahrzeit.

So therefore, today is a day that we have to think about the hiskashrus to the Rebbe. What does it mean to be connected? I mean, we say we have to learn the Rebbe's [sichos] a hundred percent, but is that the only thing of hiskashrus? And I would say that it's very important, of course, to learn, but people can learn, and when it comes to [unclear], they can be different. Hiskashrus means, as the Tanya [?] says by the Avos [?], you should be the same thing. Also being mekushar to the Rebbeim: learn from them, their hanhagos, their middos tovos, their caring about every Jew, Ahavas Yisroel, how we should be, how we should act. This is what we can learn from today. The Yud is the yahrzeit and the day that the Rebbe became Rebbe.

Now, there's not so much, I mean much, that I can say now. We don't have much time. But I do want to mention from my zeide himself, he was the Rebbe's melamed, and also from another Chassid I want to mention, in the early years of the [Rebbe]. Maybe some people know and maybe some people don't know, but whoever doesn't know, you can listen to this. This is from my zeide, what he told me.

The Rebbe was born, he says, in 1902. The Rebbe's father, Reb Levi Yitzchak, his [father] Levi Yitzchak was an einikel of Baruch Sholom. Baruch Sholom was the oldest son of the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach Tzedek was an einikel, who was the grandson of the Alter Rebbe. [He had] seven children. The youngest, the Rebbe Maharash, he was the Chabad leader, and other children also were Rebbes; one was a Kopuster [?], and others. Baruch Sholom, the oldest, was not a Rebbe. He was an adam gadol, but he was not a Rebbe. And the Rebbe comes, the [unclear] comes from Baruch Sholom, from that son.

The mother, Chana, was an aristocratic lady from Yekaterinoslav, I mean, I'm sorry, from the Yanovsky family. This is a family of rabbonim. When they were expecting the first child, in 1902, the Rebbe Rashab instructed them in details how to take care of the baby, of their son: wrap them around the white [unclear], just like they did while they're being [unclear]. Nobody even thought that the Rebbe would be later on [unclear]. And he also told them, even though the Rebbe always says that when you give a name to a child, this is only up to the parents, but the Rebbe [Rashab] asked them that you give a name to the child, a name after the Tzemach Tzedek, Menachem [Mendel].

When the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel, was five years old, his family moved to Yekaterinoslav. Reb Levi Yitzchak [went] to become a Rov. Now, let me give you a background here. The Rebbe's father lived in Pada Branka [?]. My zeide lived in Pada Branka [?]. My zeide was a shochet. And they asked the Rebbe's father to become a Rov in Yekaterinoslav. So the Rebbe's father, I don't know how, I mean there was no telephone, [maybe a] telegram, sent to my zeide begging him that he should move to Yekaterinoslav to become a teacher, a melamed, for his children. He had two more children, his father. He said two more children: one was Berel and one was Leibel. People used to say that the Rebbe's father has nice meubel. Meubel means furniture: Mem, Mendel, Berel, Leibel, children. And he needed a melamed for them, and he wanted davka [?] [unclear]. My zeide was a big [unclear].

So my zeide did answer him that he cannot go, and the reason is because he had parnosa in the [unclear], and he got more parnosa than being a teacher, a melamed. A melamed, those days, [unclear]. He said he can't go. Passed maybe a month or two, again he got a telegram from the Rebbe's father he should become [the melamed]. So he saw how much he wanted, he gave up shechita, and he moved to Yekaterinoslav to become [the melamed].

And I just want to say that when my son [unclear] was born, my father-in-law went in to the Rebbe and told him [the name]. I asked him what his name, [he] said after Zalman, after his zeide. He was the teacher, became the teacher of the Rebbe. So he said that of the feast [unclear]. So my zeide put him on his feet, under his feet [unclear], said that [unclear].

People at that time said that the child had a phenomenal memory and a deep learning far beyond his years. By the time he reached bar mitzvah, he was recognized as an illui. And I think this is written up in the last Gallery of the Greats there that I wrote: a big illui. When he was in his twenties, the Rebbe met the Rogatchover Gaon, and he got smicha from him. The Rogatchover only gave smicha to three people, and the Rebbe was one of them.

Now here I want to mention two short stories in the younger years of the Rebbe. This story I heard from my zeide. There was Shabbos HaGadol. You know, rabbonim speak Shabbos [HaGadol], they have a drasha. The Rebbe's father, it was a minhag that he put on the tallis Shabbos HaGadol when he spoke. So he spoke. A lot of people, I guess, came to hear the Rebbe's father speak. And his minhag was, he used to speak very long. He started in nigleh, and then he went into Kabbalah. In the middle of his drasha, maybe after an hour, he stopped, he looked around, and he says, "I don't know if any people know what I'm talking about." It was very deep Kabbalah. But he pointed there to the Rebbe. The Rebbe was standing by the door in the back, [unclear], was there in the back. And he says that [unclear]. That's one thing.

Another thing I heard from Reb Leizer Nanes [?] when I was a bochur. Reb Leizer Nanes [?] was a Chassid. He learned, then he came later down here to New York. He lived maybe over a hundred years. He was in prison in Russia maybe twenty years. He was a Chassid. So there's a book about Reb Leizer Nanes [?].

So Reb Leizer [?] was telling us that when he learned, I think it was [unclear], he had to go home. He was about, I don't know how old he was, about [unclear]. So he told the Rebbe Rashab. The Rebbe Rashab said, "When you go home, pass by the Rebbe's [?] house, and then you go home." That's what he told me. So he went to Reb Levi [?], and he told him, "The Rebbe told me that I should come here." He said, "You know what, before shalosh seudos, come here." The Rebbe's father used to make shalosh seudos, you know, Kabbalah, [unclear], "come to me." Fine. He came before shalosh seudos, and then the Rebbe's father called him over and says, "Come here, I want to show you something." He goes, shows him in a room, a dark, dark room. There's a light there, but it was finster. And he said to him, "Look, kuk, he will come useful to you." Who was there? The Rebbe. That's all. He didn't know what, [unclear]. Later, when Reb Leizer Nanes [?] came to New York, he came in to the Rebbe, he told the Rebbe the story, what his father said. So he gave a smile to him, and he says [unclear]. This is a story.

So anyways, in 1923, later, the Rebbe met the Frierdiker Rebbe in Rostov, and then in 1925 he met the [Frierdiker Rebbe] in Leningrad, and he started to become a secretary of the Frierdiker Rebbe. In 1928 he married Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. So this is what I wanted to mention tonight, [unclear]. And then afterwards he moved to Berlin, after [unclear] in Paris. And there's a lot to speak, but now there's no time.

Hashem should help that this day, we should learn a lesson, what it means to be mekushar to the Rebbe, to the [unclear]. B'ezras Hashem, next week we'll continue our Thursday night program. Thank you.