The Honor the Rebbe Showed His Childhood Teacher

**Historic Treasures, Episode 130: "The Honor the Rebbe Showed His Childhood Teacher" (25 Iyar 5782)**

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America through the Mindel Archives. This week is the [unclear] of my zeide, who was the Rebbe's melamed, the Rebbe's teacher.

We already had quite a few programs in the past about my zeide, the yechidus he had, and the [unclear] that the Rebbe gave my zeide. But today, l'ilui nishmaso, I want to mention something of the story with my zeide that happened, that I was involved in.

Now, as I spoke quite a few months ago when we had a program about my zeide, he was also in this, excuse me, [unclear]. He had a very clear [unclear]. He explained sedras; people used to come and listen. Very clear. And always, in his spare time: by heart he knew the complete Shisha Sidrei Mishnah, ba'al peh, with the mefarshim. So whenever my zeide rested, or whenever he was between meals, what did he do? Mishnayos.

My parents lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and I learned here in yeshiva, in [unclear] on Bedford Avenue, and I slept by my zeide. Friday I come home about 12:30, and I see that my zeide is sitting on the sofa and chazzering Mishnayos. He's telling me something, and I don't know what he's saying. So I said to him, "Zeide, say it again." He started to talk and talk, and I couldn't understand, and I saw right away that it was a stroke.

So I asked him, "Should I help you go to bed?" He says yeah, he's shaking his head. So I took him to bed and I put him down. Those days there was no cell phone, there was no WhatsApp. I don't even think that he had a telephone in his house. So I ran to Dr. Seligson, that's a [unclear] with Dr. Seligson and Michoel [?], and I told Dr. Seligson about my zeide. He came to my zeide; he was in his room. I don't know, it was about ten minutes. He tells me it's a stroke, it's a mild stroke. He hopes it's going to be okay; he doesn't know. He says, "The first thing, we have to tell the Rebbe." So I said, "I'm not going to tell. Whatever, you tell the Rebbe."

This was Friday. So after Kabbalas Shabbos he was standing by the Rebbe's door. After the Rebbe finished [unclear], he spoke to the Rebbe twenty minutes about my zeide. I don't know exactly what they spoke about. So I came back to my zeide. He was lying. He was, I mean, it was a sort of [?] coma, but his eyes were open.

Anyways, the [unclear] Shabbos, I think Dr. Seligson again, the Rebbe asked him how he is. Motzei Shabbos, after Maariv, half an hour after Maariv, the Rebbe was going home. I was standing in the hall there, near the small beis medrash, near Merkos' [?] room. The Rebbe opened his door and he was going home after Maariv. Then he saw me, so he turned around and he made to me like this: "Come with me to my room."

So I followed the Rebbe. The Rebbe opened his door again, and his key was still [unclear], because Shabbos he didn't carry the key, of course. By the Rebbe it seems that before Havdalah he didn't, he wanted to keep it [unclear], I think. So he opened the door, and I went into the room with the Rebbe. It was pretty dark, because Shabbos the Rebbe had one bulb; he didn't want to put on the light. Again the same reason, because he didn't make Havdalah, I guess. I'm not sure. It was pretty dark. The door was closed, and I was there with the Rebbe.

The Rebbe opened the drawer and he was doing something. I don't know what. I heard noise, maybe a minute, a minute and a half. It's a long time. Then he takes out a matzah, and the Rebbe tells me, "Matzah is maichla d'asvasa [?], so that's a food of refuah. Give it to your zeide [?], and he should have a good [unclear]." Later on he mentioned it again, twice. He says I should put a piece of matzah into his mouth, and if it doesn't go in, I should put it into water and make it soft and put it in his mouth.

And then the Rebbe walked out. After the Rebbe shut the door, the Rebbe went home, and I went to my zeide. My zeide was lying in bed with his eyes closed. I said, "Zeide, the Rebbe!" So he, like, shook, even though he was in such a [unclear] state. So I said, "The Rebbe said that I should take a piece of matzah to put it in your mouth." I tried to take a piece of matzah; it did not go. So I took a piece of matzah, I put it into water as the Rebbe said, I put it in his mouth, and I did put a piece of matzah into his mouth. That's it.

This was Motzei Shabbos. Sunday he was taken to the hospital. He was in the hospital for one week, till next Friday. Next Friday he was nifter. The whole week the Rebbe wanted to know; every day he asked. He asked my aunt, [unclear]. My mother was in Cleveland, but my aunt was here.

So when he passed away, the Rebbe went to the levayah. The Rebbe went all the way to the gate; the Rebbe did not [go in]. The levayah was Friday. And by the way, the Rebbe spoke Shabbos after that about somebody who passed away on Friday, it's a big [unclear]. That's another thing.

But Friday the Rebbe was standing by the gate, the outside gate. He didn't go in, and he was standing the whole time and watching from far the kevurah, the burial. But he did not go in.

[Music]

I think [someone] [unclear] asked him, "Why don't you go in?" He says, to go in, he has to then go also to the Frierdiker Rebbe, and he has to have a hachanah, he has to have preparation, and he didn't have preparation, so he couldn't go in. But he was standing outside, by the gate there, and watching till the end.

And then the Rebbe says that he wants to pay for the matzeivah, since he was his teacher, and he should put in [unclear] that "I learned by him," and that's what it says on [unclear]. And this is how it happened.

Now, from here, I don't know, I'm saying myself, you can learn out. Nowadays people just go to the Ohel. They eat a good breakfast, or they eat a good lunch, a good supper, and then they just go. They have everything a whole day, and then they go to the Ohel. I don't know if that's the way to do it. According to what the Rebbe says, he had to have preparation; the Rebbe did not have preparation to go into the Frierdiker Rebbe. So here also maybe we can learn from here: when you go today, you can't just go after having a good time and then go and [unclear]. I don't know. So this is what I wanted to mention about my zeide.

This was in [unclear: "top sheen of hey"]. His wife passed away; her name was Zelda. My birthday is in Shevat, so Rabbi Groner had the [unclear]. They went into yechidus, private. Everybody stayed there a minute, two minutes. So the first [unclear] wasn't that day. It was around Shevat time; the Rebbe had Yom Huledes [unclear], and she passed away that day. I was scheduled before that; that's the night that we're going to yechidus. So she passed away that day, and I went into yechidus for my Yom Huledes that evening.

The first thing, I walked in, the Rebbe said, "Where was she buried? Was she buried across my zeide?" The Rebbe wanted to know. In other words, the women are on the right side, and my zeide was near the Ohel, so is she mamash across? The first thing, I told the Rebbe, "I don't know." He said, "As soon as you walk out from the room, go to Merkos and find out from the Chevra Kadisha. They should find out where she was buried, is it mamash across." He [unclear], he needed to know that. So afterwards I went in, and mamash, as you can see, [unclear], she is buried across, mamash, from my zeide.

So this is the message that I wanted to mention about my zeide. [He taught the Rebbe at] the ages of, I would say, probably from six, seven, eight, nine, those years, and the Rebbe [showed] that [respect] that a student should have for a rebbe, that [unclear].

Now, I just want to finish off one more thing. We are just a few days left in the month of Iyar. As we all know, the month of Iyar is an abbreviation of "Ani Hashem Rofecha," "I am G-d, your healer," your cure. The Rebbe mentions in a letter that towards the end of the month of Iyar, every person should internalize the good of Iyar, which is refuah, cure, because Iyar is "[Ani] Hashem [Rofecha]."

[Music]

It says [unclear: "gula"], it's a positive force for cure, [unclear]. Now what does that mean? It's a month of refuah. Every month is a month of refuah. I mean, every month, we understand, we should be healthy. So what does it mean that it's Iyar?

So he explains something very interesting. There are two types of refuah, of healing. [The Torah] gives permission for a doctor to cure. That means that the doctor is a shliach of the Aibershter. So when the doctor makes an operation, or the doctor gives a medicine, he says, "Hashem, help me," because he's a shliach, and Hashem is there. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu [?] is also makdim refuah l'makah [?]: the Aibershter brings the cure before the sickness. If there is, G-d forbid, a sickness, there is a cure. Otherwise the Aibershter would not make a person get sick. There is a cure. You have to find it sometimes, but there is definitely the cure in the world.

And this reminds me: there was a Dr. Wallach. Dr. Wallach was a yekke, and he was from Eretz Yisrael, and he was a big doctor. He was very frum. When the Frierdiker Rebbe came in 1929, when he left Eretz Yisrael, there was the Hebron massacre. I think three days after he left, the Frierdiker Rebbe found out about this terrible Hebron massacre that killed a lot of Yidden, the Chabadnikes. So the Frierdiker Rebbe got sick on the boat. So they're looking for a doctor, and there was a doctor, Dr. Wallach. So Dr. Wallach came to the Rebbe, and he started to cry, and he says to the Rebbe, "[The Aibershter] brings the cure before the sickness. If I wouldn't have been on the ship, you wouldn't have gotten sick. Now I'm here to cure you." So he's asking mechilah, forgiveness, from the Frierdiker Rebbe that he was on the ship. He was a very, very frum doctor.

That also reminds me of something interesting. We are here in this house. There's somebody, [unclear: "who raises shabbat"], he lives down in Flatbush. In the beginning years, when the Rebbe gave dollars, I don't think he ever took a dollar then. He tried to [manage] the line; he was busy with the line. He was that type of person. He tried to make sure that the lines [unclear], people don't get [unclear], but they took dollars anyways. One day somebody told him, "Why didn't you get a dollar from the Rebbe?" He says okay. He went, he got a dollar from the Rebbe, and when [the Rebbe] gave him the dollar, [the Rebbe] told him [unclear].

He came running to this house. He asked me to come to the basement, because my father, Rabbi Mindel, was sitting here. He wasn't [unclear]. I went to the basement, and he said to me, "You heard the Rebbe? I'm not sick. The Rebbe told me [unclear]. Actually, I'm very nervous. I don't know what to do." I said I didn't know what to answer: "You ask Rabbi Mindel [?]." Rabbi Mindel was sitting right here. He went upstairs and he told Rabbi Mindel, and [Rabbi Mindel] started to smile. He said, "You should be happy, because just in case you were supposed to, G-d forbid, get sick, so by the Rebbe's [unclear] beforehand, everything should be okay." Anyways, he wasn't satisfied with that answer; he was still nervous. The [unclear] Wednesday after, he was taken to the hospital, internal bleeding. He was there three months. Baruch Hashem, he's walking around now. He got out; everything [unclear].

Now, there is another way of curing,

[Music]

not through a doctor. Just like Pesach: there is no sickness in the first place. Not that there is a sickness and a doctor [cures it], but the Aibershter makes that there is no sickness. This is the inyan, the second inyan of Iyar. And that's why the month of Iyar comes right after Pesach, after Nissan. Nissan was nissim, miracles, and that goes right into Iyar. So Iyar is a segulah for [unclear].

And not only that: even if a person does get sick, you can't tell that he was sick. Sometimes when a person, G-d forbid, has a heart attack and he becomes well, a doctor can see, a doctor can tell that that person had a heart attack. He can tell on the heart. But the Aibershter's refuah is such that even if he was sick, you can't even tell that the person was sick. And by the way, by a heart attack, I think, I'm not sure, you don't bench gomel, because you can never become [fully] cured, but [unclear]. This is what we should take for ourselves from the month of Iyar.

And since this is the end of Iyar, and this program again is like a farbrengen. I mean, sometimes programs have learning; sometimes lectures; sometimes you have music; you have politics. This program is like everything together, so this is like a farbrengen. So what if I bring in [unclear] that all the people that are not well should become well, and from this month we should go into the [unclear] Geulah [?].

Next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you very much.