When the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Afikoman Was Stolen

Welcome to our weekly Mitzvah Yisroel [?] program. Tonight is Yud Aleph Nissan, the Yom Huledes of our Rebbe. And it's also before Pesach. It's a very busy time. So tonight's program will be very short. I have to go, first of all, to the Ohel. And also I'm going to farbreng. So there is no time. So this program this week will be shorter than every week.

And since it's a minhag Yisroel to say a story of a tzaddik, Mitzvah Yisroel [?], and there's not too much time, so before Pesach I want to tell you two stories, short stories, that happened on Pesach.

The first story I want to tell you, and this I heard from my father-in-law, Rabbi Mentlik [?]. By the Frierdiker Rebbe. He came in 1940. I don't know what Pesach this was, whether it was, you know, maybe Lakewood, maybe 770, I'm not sure. But it was by the Rebbe's table, by the Seder on Pesach, by the Frierdiker Rebbe.

You know, by the Frierdiker Rebbe was sitting a man [unclear] the Rebbe, Reb Shmuel Levitan. And by the Frierdiker Rebbe, it came to Tzafun, you know, to hide the afikoman. So the Frierdiker Rebbe hid the afikoman under the pillow. Some people have a minhag to do it otherwise, but he put it under the pillow.

There was a Yid there, was a Chabad [Yid], that had a big problem. He didn't have children. His wife was going terrible. They were married many years without children. He went to doctors, and doctors didn't even know why. He asked the Rebbe; he wrote to the Rebbe, to the Frierdiker Rebbe. And the Rebbe answered him, and he said it wasn't clear.

So he decided: there's a minhag, a minhag Yisroel, that the children steal the afikoman. We don't have this minhag, this custom, but other people do. So when the Frierdiker Rebbe went to wash, he went over to the pillow, took the afikoman, put it in his pocket. Can you imagine, to take the Frierdiker Rebbe's afikoman, take it away? People were looking at him and they said, "Put it back." And he didn't move.

Anyways, bekitzer, it came to Tzafun. The Frierdiker Rebbe picked up the pillow: no afikoman. So whoever saw the Frierdiker Rebbe's face... I don't know, he was very worried, or I don't know. So the people were pushing him, "Give it back. Go. Give it to the Rebbe."

Anyways, he did go. He went to the Rebbe, and he says, "Rebbe, I don't have children. I need a brocha. I'll give you the afikoman, but give me a brocha."

So the Frierdiker Rebbe, that's what I was told, put his hand on his forehead. And you know, the Frierdiker Rebbe has very long eyebrows. You could see he crunched his face. And he was saying something. Nobody heard or understood what he was saying. And he stopped. Like, in other words, "Give me the afikoman."

So he says, "Rebbe, I want a promise. Not a [unclear], a promise." So the Rebbe was waiting, and again he was saying something. Exactly, I don't know what happened. And like the Rebbe was ready to eat the afikoman. So he gave the Rebbe the afikoman. He gave it to the Rebbe; finished. That's what happened.

After a year and a half or two years, this person had a girl. She grew up. Later, I'll tell you what happened later. Reb Shmuel Levitan was at the Seder; he remembers the story. The girl grew up, and he didn't have much nachas from her. I think I know who she is. He didn't have much nachas.

And Reb Shmuel Levitan said, after knowing the father, he says, "Micheni tarish lebn a brocha funem [?]." All the time the Rebbe didn't answer really. You forced the Rebbe. You took the afikoman. You forced him to give a brocha. He did. "Ober mishleped nit tarish [?]."

So this is a lesson that I learned with the Rebbe, when the Rebbe was here. When the Rebbe answers right away, it's good. Ober sometimes people want to hear an answer and the Rebbe doesn't answer. And in the end, they shlepped from the Rebbe a brocha, and the Rebbe gives the brocha. But sometimes it's not the way it should be. That's story number one, Pesach.

Another story I want to say, I said the story once and I'll say it again. Also by the Frierdiker Rebbe. This was not by the Seder. This was by a meal, I think Shabbos Chol HaMoed Pesach. They served borscht, red, you know, beet soup. Borscht soup was red.

And there was a Yid standing there, not Chabad, also. And he took a matzah and he put it into the borscht. Now, you know that we don't use shruya, because by us it's very, very important. And our minhag is not to use shruya. It's not chametz, but we don't use shruya. This Yid didn't know. So he put a matzah in the [borscht].

And the bochurim, you know, sometimes bochurim can be hotheads. So they made a commotion. I don't know if they embarrassed him or didn't embarrass him, but it was a commotion: "How can you do it? By the Rebbe you put in a matzah? Don't do it."

So the Frierdiker Rebbe heard the commotion, and he didn't know what it is. He turned to Reb Shmuel, and Reb Shmuel didn't know either. So Reb Shmuel asked somebody, and he told the Rebbe that he put a matzah in the borscht.

So the Frierdiker Rebbe turns to the bochurim and he said in Yiddish, "S'besser machen die matzah red vi dem ponim red." It's better to make the matzah red than the face red.

Of course, you shouldn't have shruya. We know that. But that doesn't come to the terrible thing of embarrassing somebody. This is mamish disturbing [?]. This is minhag Yisroel. So here you made a person's [face red]. In other words, the Rebbe didn't explain it, but I'm saying this is what the Rebbe meant.

And this is something that we can learn a [unclear] from that. That sometimes we think that we're big chassidim.

You know, I heard once a word from my father. He says, "V'hoyo": when Yitzchak bentsched Esav, Yitzchak said by the brochos, when Yaakov took away the brochos, he said to Esav, "V'hoyo k'she torid u'farakta u'le mos [?]": when Yidden will take off the yoke, then you should use the sword on the Yidden. This is the problem we have because of this brocha.

So he once said, "V'hoyo k'she torid": not taryag, taryad. When Yidden are going to do 614 mitzvos, they're going to add, they're going to be more religious. They think by doing this they'll be more religious, they'll be a bigger chassid. They're going to add, which is not necessary. "U'farakta u'le [?]..." I heard a word. So sometimes we do things, and here embarrassing is much worse.

Anyways, there's no time now. And I want to give a brocha for a kosheren [?] and a freilichen Pesach. And the reason we say kosher is because as much as we do for Pesach, we still have to have a brocha that it should be kosher. It's important.

And the Rebbe said [?], like next week, Mitzvah Yisroel [?], Shabbos Chol HaMoed, we will not have a program. We never have a program Chol HaMoed. And we should all have a freilichen Yom Tov. Thank you.