The Original Use of the Rebbe’s Yechidus Room

The Inside Story of Chabad in America — Episode 148

Welcome to our weekly program, "The Inside Story of Chabad in America," through the Mindel archives. Many people call me, they email me, that they're pleased to hear a lot of new things from the archives, and many of them had a letter from the Rebbe, and they lost the letter, or their parents lost the letter, or their grandparents lost the letter. And since Rabbi Mindel took dictation of the Igros Kodesh — most of the Rebbe's English letters — they ask me if I have a copy, and sometimes I find it and I'm pleased to give it to them.

For that I get calls — a few, the last few weeks — from some people. You know, they watch the programs, but they want to know: when the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin came to America, what happened, how did they establish themselves, where did they live, what did the Rebbe do for parnossah. Now, the truth of the matter is much is already written, it's already printed, but I found a letter that Rabbi Mindel, in 1944, wrote to the Frierdiker Rebbe about setting up Merkos, and I will share this in a few minutes.

But before that, I want to say that when the Rebbe arrived in America with the Rebbetzin, the Frierdiker Rebbe asked Rabbi Levitin [?], Rabbi Jacobson [?] — I'm not sure — that they should go and be mekabel him, and greet his son-in-law, the Ramash, who was clear in the entire Talmud Bavli, in the entire Talmud Yerushalmi, with all the mefarshim, the Rambam, and Kabbalah — because no one really knew; he was very modest about this great honor, and nobody knew who the Rebbe was. But when the Frierdiker Rebbe told them who the Rebbe was, they looked at the Rebbe differently — they [unclear] — I mean, they saw what the Frierdiker Rebbe told them, that they should be mekabel him, that his son-in-law was clear in everything.

So when they came to 770, the first thing — the Rebbe lived on the second floor with his mother, Rebbetzin Shterna Sara, who was still alive; she passed away in 1942. And Mamme was there too — we spoke about Mamme, we spoke about the Frierdiker Rebbe's connection to Mamme — and on the third floor, the Rashag, the Frierdiker Rebbe's oldest son-in-law, lived.

So they came to 770 and they gave the Rebbe a room — everybody knows where the Rebbe's room was. That room was his bedroom — meaning that at night it was a bedroom, and in the daytime this room was an office. So the Rebbe used to spend all day upstairs together with Mamme — that's why he got so close to Mamme — and she was like the nurse of the Rebbetzin — [unclear] — was in the office.

Now also, in those years, the Frierdiker Rebbe — I don't know how many Wednesdays, but there was a while that every Wednesday the Frierdiker Rebbe said a maamar over a microphone into that room, and the Rebbe downstairs would hear it. Now, the Rebbe worked in the Navy Yard, so he went to the Navy Yard, and this was his parnossah. On the weekends, or after work, many times he went to Manhattan. There was a doctor, Dr. Alexander — I think he was on West End Avenue — he was a big doctor, a lung doctor, and he had his office in his house, and his wife [unclear] was the nurse.

So when the refugees came from Europe, people were broken, they were sick, and they came to this doctor. So the Rebbe was in that office — I don't know how that came about — and the Rebbe helped the people, he spoke to them, he helped them begashmius, he helped them through this doctor. There was one person — I'm not mentioning his name — when the Rebbe became the Rebbe in '51, they recommended him to this Dr. Alexander. So he came to this doctor and said, "I was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe" — and they asked him — the doctor asked him — his wife was still alive at the time — and they explained to him, and he said, "Oh, that's the Rebbe! That came to us — such a wonderful person, how he helped people." This is something, a doctor, that I wanted to mention.

Also another thing, which is very interesting: we put on tefillin — we put on Rashi's tefillin — and we put it on, and we take off the Rashi tefillin after davening — we take off the Rashi tefillin before Mussaf — and we change to Rabbeinu Tam tefillin — that's before Mussaf. When he came to America the first time, in 770, he already put on four pairs of tefillin, and the Rebbe was so careful — I mean, he did this quietly — he didn't want people to see that he put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, so he was hiding in a corner and he put it on so people should not see. Why did the Frierdiker Rebbe tell the Rebbe to put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin? Only a guf naki, a clean body, puts on the four-pair tefillin. He didn't want people to see, but people saw anyway.

Also, every week, an hour before Kabbolas Shabbos and an hour after Havdalah, he went to the Frierdiker Rebbe, almost every week, and because of what he wrote — that's the — he went for yechidus [?] many times.

Now let's go back to America, to how the Rebbe established Merkos — how Merkos was established. So, as we said, at night it was a bedroom, in the daytime it was an office. Who worked in the office? Excuse me — Rabbi Mindel and the Rebbe worked together, number one, on the Tanya. He translated the Tanya. The Frierdiker Rebbe told him, as we once mentioned, that the Tanya is in Hebrew, and Chassidus is a closed book, because most of the Yidden in the world don't know Hebrew, [so he] asked him to translate the Tanya into English.

And Rabbi Mindel had never — excuse me — never learned Chassidus before; the same as the Rebbe — they were involved in the yeshiva under [unclear] — Yeshiva [unclear] — told him [unclear]. So how did he know Tanya, to translate the Tanya? So the Frierdiker Rebbe told the Rebbe to learn with him and to give him manuscripts, and that's how Rabbi Mindel learned the Tanya, so that he would be able to say he worked together with the Rebbe on the Tanya. This is very — where did they work? In the room — that was, I don't know — Merkos, that was, I guess, in that room.

I mentioned once, when the first Tanya came out, there was a Sputnik then, yeah — which is in the early '60s, late '50s — and Rabbi Mindel gave the Rebbe the first copy. So the Rebbe said, "The first Tanya came out, you make a big fuss over this" — like Sputnik, the first Tanya came out, there was a big thing. So they worked in that room.

Also, in those days, the amaratzus [ignorance] — even among the children, people — the amaratzus was very big. So the Rebbe made, together with Rabbi Mindel, in English, a [publication] — I already, I think, printed it, and I think we should — we did more copies — a collection of the stories of the Rebbeim that was done in that room — the stories, "Talks and Tales," which is by the Rebbe — the Frierdiker Rebbe's sayings — this was like a maamar. The Frierdiker Rebbe said — I think I mentioned it — that when he reads it, [he sees] the wonder of [unclear] — that's how important and holy "Talks and Tales" was, written by Rabbi Mindel — wherein, for children, it is a collection of stories collected from the Frierdiker Rebbe's sayings, and they would put, every day, a different saying — and he put in himself, his own, whatever belonged on that day. Also, the letters were written like that — and "The Commandments" was one of the first — he wrote, everything was written on that day, in that room.

Now, while Rabbi Mindel was working on that, Rabbi Hodakov had to distribute it — that was his job. He [Rabbi Mindel] worked on Talks and Tales, but it had to be sent out, so he [Rabbi Hodakov] had to find people to send out Talks and Tales and other things — so this was his job. I mean, all the [people] that came later were not there then.

Now, while Lubavitch was growing, Rabbi Mindel was the first to work all day in Merkos — Rabbi Mindel worked a few hours, since the Rebbe needed him to work for him. But how can you work? I mean, you can't work — you need a secretary, you need a typewriter, you need all these things, and they didn't have them. So Rabbi Mindel wrote a letter to the Frierdiker Rebbe, and I'm going to read you this short letter. I'm going to read the letter to the Frierdiker Rebbe — this was written in 1944, written in Hebrew, and we translated it into English. This was written in 1944:

"Greetings and a blessing. The Rebbe [Frierdiker Rebbe] is surely aware of the technical challenges we are facing working in Merkos, an organization which, boruch Hashem, has spread and grown — and especially as the operation has remained the same as when Merkos was first established, this has caused setbacks and losses.

In brief, the basic things that are lacking that I need in order to work: There is no orderly office — there is no office. There is no suitable secretary — you need a secretary to answer phones, to type. There are not sufficient hands to assist in the publication of material, and this results in delays, literally until minutes before Shabbos, at which point there is no time for distribution, because you need people. There is no warehouse for the printing material, which is now lying in piles all over the office, all over — in the hall, and also in the room — the Merkos room was [left] empty [of proper facilities]. There is no administrator in charge, and no fundraiser.

We have already discussed the above matters with [someone] familiar with the nature of the situation. Understandably, there are great hurdles, among them financial, which stand in the way of bettering the situation.

In my opinion, there is much that can be done to improve the situation, and we should certainly make the effort to improve it and fill the gap. And although it will initially entail expenses, experience has proven that these expenses would not be spent in vain, but rather every penny will be returned double and triple-fold. I believe I would be able to correct much of the lack enumerated above, given the necessary resources, and I therefore suggest the following:

I am prepared to accept a position in Merkos of 30 hours a week, in addition to my [other] work." That's all the time he gave then — but later he worked almost 24 hours.

"We will rent a room near 770, an office. The cost of this would be approximately ten dollars a week, and will include a telephone. Setting up the office will not be more than a hundred dollars. Hire a secretary, whose responsibility would be: number one, to assist me — literally, work, like typing; and two, to reply to correspondence. The cost of this will be thirty-five dollars a week. Until we find a fundraiser, I would undertake this task in the interim, of course with the participation of the Ramash and Rabbi Hodakov, since no action can be done without their approval. The suggestions and conditions mentioned above are connected, one to another."

And then he signs his name.

So this is how Merkos started, in that room. And then, later on, as we know, that room had [more people working in it] — Rabbi Mindel was in the