Stories About the Rebbe’s Childhood Melamed

Episode 175: "Stories About the Rebbe's Childhood Melamed" (20 Iyar 5783)

Welcome to our weekly program. Next week is my zaide's yahrtzeit — my mother's father, the Rebbe's teacher, the Rebbe's melamed, Shneur Zalman ben Levi Yitzchok [name as heard, uncertain]. So I want to dedicate this program l'ilui nishmaso.

We are now in the period from Pesach until Rosh Hashanah when we say — we read, we learn, as we spoke last week — Pirkei Avos, which teaches how to lead a moral and ethical life and develop good character traits. As we're learning in Pirkei Avos, we should learn from Aharon: loving peace, pursuing peace, loving everybody, judging people with a good eye, and being humble. These are things that I learned in Pirkei Avos, and my zaide lived these character traits.

I lived with my zaide when I was a bochur. My parents lived in Cleveland, so I learned in yeshiva here and I lived with him. So I experienced firsthand my zaide's greatness, and I want to share with you some personal stories about my zaide, who was the Rebbe's melamed.

It's unfortunate that very often we do not appreciate a person until the person is no longer here. After one hundred and twenty years, then we speak about the great points of the person. We should appreciate a person while the person is still in this world. You know, there's a saying we learned last week — after a person passes away, then he becomes holy. What about when the person is still here?

So I want to share with you a fascinating mashal, a fascinating example — and I don't have the letter in front of me. In the 1940s the Frierdiker Rebbe couldn't go to be menachem avel — you have to go sit shiva — he couldn't go, so he wrote a nichum aveilim letter. I can't find it here now, but I have it somewhere.

And the Rebbe starts with a mashal: a person was standing by the seashore, and he saw ships coming in, going out, bringing goods, going out, coming in, and he was standing and meditating, thinking, this is a quiet place, a place where you can relax. And then he picks up his head and he looks all the way to the right side, and he sees hundreds and hundreds of people dancing, singing, music, celebrating — what's the simcha? A new ship was built, and today that ship is going out, going for the first time across the world, across the ocean, for the first time, for a long, long journey. So everybody's happy, they're celebrating.

Then the person turns to his left side, and from far he sees an old ship coming to its final destination with goods. Who is there to greet it? Maybe a handful of people. So the person says to himself: look, here is a new ship, it's going out for the first time, but we don't know whether the ship will overcome all the storms, all the winds, all the wars, all the difficulties — whether the ship will, God forbid, sink or not — we don't know. We hope everything will work out, but we don't know. Here is an old ship that already came back — that traveled for many, many years — and it went through all the difficulties, all the storms, the winds, and it's coming back to bring, to its final destination, to bring back goods. How many people are there to greet it, to welcome it? Do we appreciate that?

And so it is — a person comes down to this world, there's an evil inclination, and there are so many things a person faces. We hope the person will come out much clearer, but we still don't know. But here is an elderly person who already went through everything, and baruch Hashem they raised a family and did everything. They didn't stop to think about the person who raised that family, and baruch Hashem — who is there to appreciate them? Just a few people. And we have to learn how to appreciate other people while they are still here. Every person has strong points, every person, and we shouldn't degrade anybody. So this is the mashal that I wanted to mention to you.

Getting back to my zaide — my zaide, people that knew him knew his noble [unclear], his refinement. He never spoke a bad word about anybody — even if somebody said something not good, you couldn't stand it — he never, never, never, I never heard one word of lashon hara from him in this world, never. He used to farbreng, and it was that he was a tzaddik; he was a living example. He didn't have to speak much — the fact that he was sitting and farbrenging, even if he wasn't the biggest speaker, but since he was a tzaddik, he was a living example. People learned from him; they went away from the farbrengen with something, and they lived with that, because he — I mean, years ago, I remember a member of this [unclear], I remember he was here, [Castleman? — unclear], another older [unclear]...

...and their [legacy/mesorah — unclear] — this is the most important thing. I mean, unfortunately we have people that farbreng — beautiful speakers, good speakers, excellent — they give good talks. But what we should take away from a farbrengen has to be from a tzaddik, as I heard from my parents' home: if a person farbrengs and he prepares in advance for the farbrengen, that's not a good sign — it means the person should just live it; that's him, that's his way. This was my zaide — he was [unclear], he was —

and what did he do in his spare time? Every letter of the Chumash, every Sidra, Mishnayos — the whole time he studied. He always used to mention there was somebody, Reb [Ushpal? — unclear], he was a melamed in [a town — unclear], he did the targum for people. So he told my family that when he did the targum of Yeshaya, it says, "whoever [does it], his face shines" — he saw a difference in his own face from others because of it. You know, there's a teaching — if people could perceive it — there was a person who walks outside, and he doesn't have tallis or tefillin — the Mishnah mentions that the ground screams and says, "you bum, what right do you have to step on me? If you have tallis and tefillin then you can step on me, but if you don't, why are you better than me?" So anyway, this was his thing.

So here I want to share with you a story. As I mentioned before, I lived with my zaide. One Friday I came home — I was a bochur, I came home from yeshiva — and I see my zaide sitting on the sofa, learning Mishnayos and crying. I never saw that before. So I went over to him; he started to talk to me, to explain to me, but I couldn't understand what he said. I thought there was something wrong. I said, "Can I help you? Let's go lie down in the bedroom." He said yes, so I helped him and I put him in bed.

Now, those days — this was in 1963. I was a young bochur. There was no telephone there that I could use to call anybody, but there was a doctor, Dr. Zaldson [?], who was the family doctor — it's a whole story about Dr. Zaldson, which is not the place now to speak about. So I ran to Dr. Zaldson and said, "My zaide — can you come see him?" He came to see my zaide, and he gave him a shot or something, and he said he has a stroke.

This was on Friday. Friday night, Dr. Zaldson was waiting by the Rebbe's room after Kabbalas Shabbos. Dr. Zaldson spoke to the Rebbe by the Rebbe's room, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, about my zaide — the Rebbe wanted to know everything. Shabbos again, in the morning, again the Rebbe wanted to know how he's feeling, and he came to visit him again.

But to make a long story short: Shabbos was over, I was standing near the small shul in the hall there — this was maybe an hour after Shabbos was over. I was standing there when the Rebbe, who was going home, saw me, and motioned that I should follow him. The Rebbe turned around and went back to his room. I followed the Rebbe into the room. The room was pretty dark, I guess because the Rebbe had not yet made Havdalah — I don't think the Rebbe had put on the light because he hadn't made Havdalah. I'm not sure, because he could have put on the light, but there was just one lamp he had on Shabbos — one bulb — so it was pretty dark.

I was in the room with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe opened his drawer and was doing something which I didn't see exactly, but I heard him moving papers — he moved things around for maybe two or three minutes — and then he said to me, since it's Pesach — we all know the story, that on the first night of Pesach matzah is called "bread of faith," and on the second night matzah is "bread of healing" — that's Pesach — "so give the matzah to your zaide, have a good week." And he told me that if it's too hard to put the piece into his mouth, I could take the matzah, soak it in water, make it softer, and put it in his mouth.

He said this and I walked out. I walked out and went home — I walked home, he didn't go by car in those days, the Rebbe walked home — he walked home. I came to my zaide with the matzah, and I [told him] — like, he trembled, even though he had had a stroke, he heard the words, "I have matzah for you from the Rebbe," and he was [moved] — the Rebbe's word meant everything to him. I said the Rebbe said we should put a piece in his mouth. I tried to take a piece and put it in his mouth, I couldn't — I tried to push it, it was hard, it couldn't go in — so I put it in water and made it soft, and I did put some pieces in his mouth. This is what happened.

The whole week the Rebbe constantly asked how he was feeling — there was a whole story to it, which I don't want to go into. The next Friday, exactly a week later, he passed away. The Rebbe went to the funeral — he went to the levaya. As a matter of fact, I didn't see it, but I was told that when the aron went through 770, the Rebbe held the aron with his hand — that's what I was told, I didn't see it myself.

So the Rebbe went to the levaya. At the burial, the Rebbe did not go all the way to the grave. The Rebbe was standing outside — there was a gate, not like now, now there's a building there, but in those days there was just a gate — and the Rebbe stayed outside. My zaide [was brought] in the same car — I think maybe Rabbi Jacobson [?], I'm not sure. Anyway, the Rebbe was watching while the burial was going on; he looked straight ahead, he was watching, but he didn't go in. [Someone] asked why he didn't go in, and [the answer] was that if he goes in, he would then have to go to the Frierdiker Rebbe['s ohel] — but that day he hadn't prepared for that, so he could not go in, because he would have had to go in there. So they stood there the whole time until the end, and afterward he said he wanted to pay for the [funeral] materials. This is what I wanted to share with you about my zaide.

Now, when my zaide came to America in 1952–53, he went in to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe right away went to the door, and the Rebbe said, "Please sit down." My zaide said, "How can I sit down in front of the Rebbe?" So the Rebbe said, "Sit down." My zaide was not going to sit down in front of the Rebbe. So the Rebbe said, "How can I sit down in front of my melamed?" They were both standing — I don't know for how long, maybe close to two hours — both standing and talking, I guess remembering what happened years ago, what happened when they were young — I don't know, but they were both standing and talking.

The second time, when my zaide went in a year later, he wasn't feeling well, so the Rebbe told him to sit down, and he sat down — and the Rebbe also sat down. Can you imagine that — a teacher, now an old man, a person who taught him when he was six, seven, eight years old?

When my zaide walked into a farbrengen, he wasn't feeling well, so he walked in during the middle of the niggun; from far, in the middle of the hall, the Rebbe stood up — he saw him — so everybody stood up until he sat down. And when my zaide walked out, also — he couldn't stand for long, and in those days the farbrengens would go until late — so he walked out; the Rebbe was in the middle of the farbrengen, and the Rebbe stood in the hall until my zaide was out of sight. He was a special person.

Now, speaking about my zaide — he had a [second] wife, and her name was Zelda. This was his second wife; the first wife was Riva — that was my bubby, my mother's mother, and she passed away young. Zelda was the second wife. Zelda passed away — two years before my zaide, in Teves [uncertain]; my zaide's yahrtzeit is in Shevat.

So Rabbi Groner would arrange one night, one hour, for all those who had a yahrtzeit to go in, each separately, but it would be during a night of maybe an hour or two — we all went in separately. The time I went in for yechidus for Zelda's yahrtzeit, it was after the levaya — I had arranged it before — and I went in, and the Rebbe asked me right away, "Where is she buried?" I said, "I don't know." "Is she buried across the same line as my zaide?" — there's a section for women and a section for men, and there's a matching line — he asked me if she was buried exactly across; he wanted to know, it was very important to him. I said, "I don't know." So he said, "As soon as you walk out" — and he gave me a brocha — "find out — go to Merkos, and let me know right away if she's buried right across from [unclear]."

Anyway, the fact is that she is buried — you can see that she is buried — and it turned out that her row is the same line as his mother's, right after his mother's row. Merkos had a lot of candles, and I was trying to get ner[os] to give out, because they wanted there to be a minyan in the house — there were no children [there], but there should be at least a minyan, at least during the shiva time, the whole week — to put in there. The Rebbe wanted to provide [neros], and I couldn't find any, so he said, "Go to Merkos, and Marcus will give you the ner," because they kept some there. So that's how the levaya was handled.

So, since next week I will not have a program, my next program will be after Shevuos. So I would like to wish everybody a good yom tov, and as the Rebbe says in the telegram before Shevuos, that it should be kabbalas haTorah b'simcha ub'pnimiyus.