Why We Knock Before Entering the Rebbe’s Ohel

Historic Treasures — Episode 189: "Why We Knock Before Entering the Rebbe's Ohel"

Welcome to our weekly program, the inside story of Chabad in America through the Mindel archives. We are going through great challenges now — everybody knows about the last three weeks — and we are well aware of the Rebbe's view and the Rebbe's guidelines when it comes to these matters. Like we heard when the Rebbe spoke by the Six Day War, and particularly by the Yom Kippur War, his emphasis was on the power of young children, that they will defeat the enemy — to gather children together, to give them to learn. So at the end of this program I want to share with you something about that.

Also, what I want to say is that I was told that in the last few weeks — these three weeks' time — many, many people went to the Ohel, people who never went before, who went now to be mispallel (to pray) at the Ohel. So today I want to share with you a fascinating letter that was written to the Rebbe.

This letter was given to Rabbi Mindel to give to the Rebbe. Usually letters that people wrote to the Rebbe were sent to 770, and Rabbi Groner and Rabbi Klein, or [name unclear], would bring the letters in to the Rebbe. But some letters were written to the Rebbe and sent to Rabbi Mindel's home, so that he should give them to the Rebbe. Why? Because these were personal stories that people had gone through, and they wanted the Rebbe to know about them, and they also wanted them to go into a magazine. You know, Rabbi Mindel was an author — he wrote a lot. He was involved with [unclear], he was involved with [unclear] — so they wanted that he should [pass it along].

So he gave it to the Rebbe, and then the Rebbe gave it back to him, to put it into Talks and Tales or whatever — I don't know if it ever ran or not — but that's why I have these letters. In the future I have a whole packet of letters that people wrote to the Rebbe, amazing stories about themselves, and then the Rebbe gave them back — and some of them the Rebbe answered.

So today I want to share with you one letter that I found. This letter was written by Rabbi Yankel Gunsberg [?]. I knew him very well — he was from Milan, Italy. He wrote to the Rebbe, and he sent it to Rabbi Mindel, so that he should give it to the Rebbe. He wrote it in Hebrew, and I will translate this letter into English.

He writes like this: "I want to jot down a few lines which I heard from my older brother, Yosef [?], who served at the Ohel of the Alter Rebbe until the end of World War II. He would go once a day, or every other day, to add oil to the ner tamid — the lamp which burns constantly — and also to keep up the maintenance of the Ohel." That was his job.

He writes further about his brother: in the town of Haditch [?], in the later years, when they closed down the mikvah of the city, his brother built a secret mikvah in his home. When they closed down the shul, he arranged a minyan and davening in his father's house. In addition, he used to do communal work, such as distributing matzah — people were not allowed to bake matzah in their own homes, so he used to give out matzah to whoever needed it, whoever came to him. He also used to arrange kosher meat for the year. This was the job of Yankel's brother.

"Often, when I was in his house," he writes — when Yankel Gunsberg was staying in his brother's home — "he would invite me to accompany him to the Ohel of the Alter Rebbe to add the oil. It was a long walk — about three verst," he writes (I don't know exactly how much a verst is — three miles or more). He used to walk, and he asked Yankel to come along.

"When we reached the entrance of the Ohel" — this is a translation of the Hebrew — "I saw that he knocked on the door before he walked into the Ohel, and I asked him, why are you knocking on the door? For what purpose? The door was closed — why knock?" So he answered that years ago, the shamash of the shul lived near the cemetery of the Alter Rebbe, and he would go every day to check on the ner tamid, to add oil when necessary, so that it should always keep burning. One time, as this shamash entered the resting place of the Alter Rebbe, he heard a variety of very strange and blood-curdling voices by the oil. This caused him to become deaf from the great noise, and he fell ill as a result. From then on, the custom was instituted to knock three times on the door of the Ohel before entering.

Now, I was always wondering — I know that the Rebbe knocks on the Ohel before he goes in. I didn't know the source; maybe somebody knows it. I used to think that it was simply because before you walk into somebody's home, you knock on the door — that's why he knocked before walking in. Maybe that is the reason. But it seems from this letter that, since this incident, people knocked on the door before entering the Ohel.

That's one thing he heard from his brother. Here's another thing he heard from his brother Yosef [?]: Many years ago, a dog came and lay down on a grave right near the Ohel, and proceeded to bark bitterly for many, many weeks. When they tried to chase the dog away, they could in no way do it — he constantly barked. When Yankel asked why this was so, his brother said that perhaps it was a soul that came to ask for a tikkun — a rectification — for some other reason, and he suggested that even animals, when they are in a difficult situation, go to the resting place of a tzaddik and ask for compassion.

I guess I don't want to go too deeply into the subject of gilgulim — I know the Zohar speaks about it — that sometimes, after a person's 120 years, a punishment can continue into an animal, and the soul needs a tikkun, a rectification, and so it lies down by the grave of tzaddikim and begs there until — I guess — the tzaddik answers. I don't know, but this is the whole concept of gilgulim, which the Rebbe writes about elsewhere, which maybe I'll share with you another time. But this is what his brother told him.

A third thing he heard from his brother Yosef [?]: One year — this is amazing — on one of the bitter winter days of the 24th of Teves (the yahrzeit of the Alter Rebbe), there was a lot of snow, and it was a bitterly cold day. It was difficult to get to the Ohel to daven with a minyan on this auspicious day. On the Jewish side of [town, unclear], as was the custom there, they always had a minyan. So they were waiting for people to come — they had nine people, and they were waiting all day in the bitter, freezing cold weather for a tenth, because they needed a minyan, and nobody else showed up the whole day. It was getting late already.

So one of the nine — a great [chossid/rav, name unclear] who lived in the 1920s and '30s — opened the door of the resting place of the Alter Rebbe and declared, using these words: "Tzaddikim are greater after their passing than during their lifetime — we are counting the Alter Rebbe in the minyan as the tenth one." This person, who was a great [figure, title unclear], said, "We can daven with a minyan — the Alter Rebbe is the tenth." And they said Kaddish, they davened like a regular minyan, leaving the door open to the room where they were davening, with the davening taking place a little bit outside, counting the Alter Rebbe as the tenth. That's how he writes it to the Rebbe.

Now, this chossid was well known. I remember my father told me that for a few weeks or a few months he slept in the same room with him — there were two beds there. At night, he used to put cold water in a pail and put his feet in the water, so that he would be able to stay up and not fall asleep while learning Torah. So all day he davened, and at night he learned Torah. He was a special person.

My father told me that on Pesach, he didn't eat matzah — I mean, he had to eat the k'zayis (the minimum required amount), so he ate just that k'zayis, but the rest of the holiday he wouldn't touch matzah at all — he used to eat only eggs, because matzah was [such a stringent matter — unclear]. This was — I remember he was like — I would say we're not even on that level. I also remember him davening for hours and hours, holding his tallis, standing by the wall and davening, maybe three or four hours, just davening. I think they said — I don't remember whether it was that they [unclear].

Speaking about Reb Nissan [?] — Reb Nissan was also a shadar, a shliach who used to collect money [for tzedakah]. My zeide told me that in Russia, [someone] had kidney stones — very, very big pain, for weeks and weeks. Reb Nissan used to pass by, going around collecting money, and he used to stop by my zeide's house. So my zeide told him, "I have a lot of pain, I can't get rid of it." Reb Nissan stood up, took his hand, and said, "You need this — I am giving you a brachah that you should get patur (relief) from the stones." My zeide told me: okay, and then he sat a few minutes and left. An hour later, all the stones passed. So, you know — when you're dealing with a real tzaddik, and as it says, if you are exactly this type of person, then you have the power to give brachos.

So, continuing the letter he wrote to the Rebbe — additional things his brother told him about Reb Nissan's [?] daily seder: He would daven the whole day, until late at night, at which time he finished Maariv and then had a meal. What was the meal? Herring, a piece of black bread, and a hot drink. So they asked him, "Why are you so frugal — why do you spend so little on food? After all, you held an honorable position, you were an emissary, you traveled far collecting money for the Rebbe, and you earned money — so why couldn't you afford a better meal every day?" Same thing, the same meal. So he answered with a sigh and with humility — that's how he wrote it: quoting, "Lo shaveh..." (I don't know exactly what that means in full) — he said, "A slave is not worthy of the bread that fills his stomach." Meaning: you're asking me why I'm eating this, even this humble piece of herring? As it's said — a slave is not worthy of the bread that fills his stomach. That's how he wrote this letter to the Rebbe.

He writes further — which we don't have time to go into — about the yeshivah where he learned, and the programs they went through in those times, when they had to hide. He wrote this whole story to the Rebbe and wanted it to go into one of the magazines.

At the end, he writes that there was once a farbrengen of the chassidim — this was in [place unclear] — and the whole farbrengen went late into the night, with a lot of singing. [The Rebbe/the speaker at the farbrengen] spoke again about the power of little children — "this is how we will get rid of the enemy" — and this is how they went through the whole night. He spoke and he drank a lot; there were people outside who heard about it, and it was a very dangerous time. At one point he was screaming very loudly, and all of a sudden everyone left. That's one of the things he writes.

So this is what he writes to the Rebbe. And we all know that before the Yom Kippur War, nobody knew there was going to be a war, and the Rebbe gave dimes to children — and I don't know why — and then we saw the Yom Kippur War, because of the children, the little children, through the power of children. And this is what we should do now: gather children together.

This letter is one of many that Rabbi Mindel received from people, so that he should give the Rebbe their personal stories. In the future, maybe in a few weeks, we'll share more stories that people wrote to the Rebbe. Some of them the Rebbe just glanced over — I'll tell you about those — this one the Rebbe just [reviewed], but others he answered more fully. So in the coming weeks I'm going to feature these special letters that people wrote.

The reason I have these letters at all is that usually, when people wrote letters to the Rebbe, the Rebbe wanted them to be burned afterward. But I have this one because the Rebbe gave it back to Rabbi Mindel, so that he could put it into certain magazines — I don't know if he ever did or not.

So I hope that we should be rid of our enemies, and we should continue our weekly program next week. Thank you.