Inside the Process of Writing the Rebbe’s Letters

Welcome to our weekly Mitzvah Yisroel Shabbos program. Baruch Shehecheyanu v'kiyemanu v'higi'anu lizman hazeh.

Finally, after many years — I promised that there's going to be six folders of the early years of Chabad in America, from the files of Rabbi Nissan Mindel. And finally, people — Chabad and not Chabad — they're all waiting for the books to be printed. And Baruch Hashem, this week the first folder is going into print, and Im Yirtzeh Hashem it'll be ready in about a month. Every home should have this book — "The Early Years of Chabad in America."

This is the picture on the cover of the folder — this is the cover of the book. You'll see it clearly; it's not clear now. On top you see there is a desk, and there is a telephone, and a typewriter. I think there's a camera there, and a magnifying glass. This is the desk that Rabbi Mindel worked on at home on the letters of the Rebbe. This was the telephone he used to speak to the Rebbe when he needed to discuss the letters. And this is the table he used. The camera is the camera he used to take pictures at the first farbrengen, Yud Alef Shvat, Tav Shin Yud Alef. So I put it on top — you'll see it clearly when you see the book.

Now, Sholom [?] and many other people, they don't know — and I don't expect them to know — how the letters went. The only one who really knows is Rabbi Mindel, because he's the one who took dictation. All the English letters — I can't say the word "all" — ninety-nine and a half percent was dictated. He took dictation. He went in to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe told him — the Rebbe spoke in Yiddish — the Rebbe said, "This letter should be done in Hebrew, this letter should be done in English, this letter should be done in Russian, in French, in Spanish, whatever language." So he took dictation, he went home, he composed the letters. Then he brought it to the Rebbe. Sometimes the Rebbe checked all the letters. Sometimes the Rebbe added a word. Sometimes the Rebbe took off a word or two. Sometimes the Rebbe left it as it was. But the nusach — the wording — is the wording of Rabbi Mindel. It's only a matter of a few words. Then he had to go back home and retype the letter after the correction, and bring it back to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe signed it.

Some letters he gave to my brother to type. My brother didn't take dictation, but he typed what he was given. So most of the Hebrew letters — not all. The standard letters, of course, he didn't do — you know, hesped letters, or letters to people where we started letters — that was done sometimes by Rabbi [unclear], sometimes by Rabbi [unclear]. But the main letters, the English letters, were done by him — all the English. The letter for the year of Nissan, important letters that the Rebbe put a lot of work into, and the Hanukkah letter, the Basi L'Gani-related letter, the Sukkot letter — the words are the words of Rabbi Mindel. The Rebbe did not sit and write it himself. There would be letters that the Rebbe himself wrote — that's something else. But any typed letter — the English wording — was all Rabbi Mindel's nusach. This is the truth. And it is the Rebbe's letter, because the Rebbe entrusted Rabbi Mindel to do this. So we have to know: the words are Rabbi Mindel's words, and then the Rebbe corrected a word here and a word there.

And as a matter of fact, the faith the Rebbe had in him — when the Rebbe chose Rabbi Mindel to come with him from Riga to America, he wanted — but that's okay, he should come. And that he should translate the Tanya into English — he had never learned Tanya. How can a person who never learned Tanya do this? And the Rebbe said, "Work with Leibel Groner. When he came to America, work with my son-in-law." And they worked together, and I have the manuscripts that the Rebbe gave him, that the Rebbe wrote. They worked together, and he translated the Tanya into English.

Also — here, you can't see it — this is a letter from the Previous Rebbe. He signed it, about the character of Rabbi Mindel: that he was talented, that he was honest. The Previous Rebbe writes that he hardly ever saw as honest a person as Rabbi Mindel. So he was the one who was given the job to do this.

Every secretary had their job. Let's say — some secretaries had the job of being in the office. It doesn't mean they didn't have other jobs, but this was the main job. Some secretaries had the job of typing. Some secretary was a mashpia for the Rebbe. Some secretaries drove the Rebbe — and they did other things too; it doesn't mean they only drove, they also did other things. Everybody had their job. Rabbi Hodakov had his job — he was the menahel overall. Rabbi Mindel had his job — his job was letters, his job was to write sichos, his job was to write the Kuntreisim — he was basically the head of the Kuntreisim. Rabbi Hodakov was the menahel overall. So everyone had their job. Rabbi Mindel's job was writing.

Now, by the way, those letters — English or Hebrew — the Rebbe said to him: one copy you should keep, one copy sent to the person. There are letters that the Rebbe did not sign, and I have a pekel of those — which he wouldn't send. And other letters remained in Merkos, in the office. This is how it went. So he has every single letter, the Hebrew and the English — he was a great baal mesader. And some he left — not all, he left some in Merkos. He did what the Rebbe told him.

Now, as you know, Merkos had many secretaries. There was Rabbi Quint, there was Rabbi Simpson, there was Rabbi Krinsky, Zalman Zaingesund [?], there was Rabbi Groner, there was Rabbi Klein. [unclear] worked, and Rabbi Mindel worked, in one little room — can you imagine? And all the letters had to be there. A lot of letters were lost. And I remember Rabbi Simpson called — he came to Rabbi Mindel's house. He collected letters — that's all he did, he collected. He asked him, and he gave him — he gave him many letters, not all, but many, many letters. So he has the letters — some he got from Merkos, and some were lost. I have the other ones. So there were three copies.

In the years before the Rebbe was Rebbe, when he was called the Ramash, he worked with Rabbi Hodakov. The others were not there yet. The Rebbe came in 1940, and Rabbi Hodakov and Rabbi Mindel were basically the only ones here at first — they began Merkos. So the Rebbe wrote letters, and nobody saw these letters, because the Rebbe didn't say to leave a copy in Merkos for those. Those letters — if I have time, I don't know when — maybe the other three volumes of Letters and Spirit will give them out. Those, nobody has, because they were only copied for himself — the Rebbe said this, before he was Rebbe — and one copy to send to the person.

So I wanted to tell you exactly how the letters went. But those letters that were typed — the wording is not the wording of the Rebbe. That doesn't mean it's not the Rebbe's letters — these are the Rebbe's letters, the Igros Kodesh, the typed ones. The only letters the Rebbe didn't sit and write himself — the Previous Rebbe did. I have letters from the Previous Rebbe that should also be printed — some of them are printed in this book you'll see in a month. But those letters were not just two copies — so this is basically how it went. There's still much to talk about. This book has a lot of letters, this book has documents, we have notes, some photos, articles, many hagahos — marginal notations of the Rebbe. You'll see it in a month. In the meantime, I just want to let you know today that the book is coming out, and I'm sure every home will have it. This will bring out the truth [unclear], and everybody will know how it happened in the early years of the Rebbe. It's only the first folder — there's five more to go.

Now I want to say something. People might ask, "What's so unique about these folders? Everything is already written." As a matter of fact, in the last few years beautiful books came out from different authors and writers about the Rebbe, about the Rebbetzin, about the early years, and some of them were bestsellers. Mashpi'im, lecturers, spoke about the early years of the Rebbe. And you can't make up new stories. So what is so unique about this book, these six folders, that everybody's going to see?

Let me explain something. There is a saying, "Don't believe what you hear, believe half of what you see." You know, people can sit around a table — there's ten people at the table, and one person tells Shimon a secret, a story, and Shimon hears it and tells the same thing to Levi, Levi says it to Yehuda, and it goes all around the table — until it comes to the last person, the story that was told is a completely different story. Even the third person — you ask him, "Tell me, what did I say?" — he says, but it's not the same. This is how it is. It's not a hundred percent. There is a klal — a rule — and they say, "People's minds are not equal." Everyone is noge'a bedavar — everybody has personal motives, everyone has their perspective. People understand differently. I can tell somebody a story and he changes it a little because he understands it differently — there's nothing wrong, that's what he understands. So by the time it comes to the last person, it's a completely different story. Every person is noge'a bedavar — every person has their own agenda, every person has their own thoughts, and sometimes it doesn't reflect the true state of affairs, and people are inclined toward their own way of thinking. That's a natural thing.

We live now in a world where unfortunately almost nobody saw the Frierdiker Rebbe, and many, many people never saw our Rebbe, and even if they did see him, they were babies. And many books that people wrote about the Rebbe, about the Frierdiker Rebbe, and about the Rebbetzin, were from interviews — secondhand. They didn't experience it, they heard it. And when you hear a story, it could be true, it could be not true. I can tell you the truth — I hear many lecturers tell certain stories, and I found — I called the people it happened to — it's not the same. Because it's hearsay — it was interviewed, they heard it from this one, and this one heard it from the other one, and the other one heard it from — it's not their fault, that's how they heard it, that's how stories go. So many stories could be true, of course — many stories of the Baal Shem Tov could be true, and you have to believe. But is it true? I don't know. So many things about the early years of the Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe — it's all hearsay. This one heard it from — how do you know? I heard it from this one, and this one heard it from this one. And they're all right, but maybe it's a myth, maybe it's not a myth.

These six folders that are going to be printed are different. This is fascinating material — these are documents, letters, stories written by the Rebbe, from Rabbi Mindel and Rabbi Hodakov. They lived through the early years. They came with the Rebbe — they were on the boat with the Rebbe, with the Frierdiker Rebbe. They worked with the Rebbe in 1941, '42, '43, '44. They were actually involved — it's not that they wrote something they heard from somebody else. So when this book comes out, you will see these are not just stories that maybe happened — these are stories from people who mamash went through this.

And as I showed you before, this — the Frierdiker Rebbe trusted Rabbi Mindel. Whoever knew him — most people don't know him — knew he was honest, a pushed, honest man. The Previous Rebbe said it, and his father-in-law — he said it about the Previous Rebbe too: you search for the truth, you find the truth, and you live with the truth. This is Rabbi Mindel. So this is what's unique about these folders that we've all been waiting for.

So again, I want to say: the letters were all English, and it's all Rabbi Mindel's nusach. So when you're learning a letter, you're learning the Rebbe's letter — it's the Rebbe's, the Rebbe signed it, it's a hundred percent the Rebbe's. The nusach is Rabbi Mindel's. This is how the letters went. This is all the top letters. Most of the Igros — not all — the more intellectual letters were written by Rabbi Mindel. In the beginning there was a Rabbi Rotstein — he also took dictation, but he didn't know shorthand. The intellectual letters, you needed a Rabbi Mindel, because he was an intellectual person — you needed that type of person. So even from then — Rabbi Rotstein passed away around 1966 or '67, I'm not sure — but this is what people have to know.

So I hope this gives an answer to people who want to know how the letters went, and who want to know more. I've been asked to be interviewed by a few people — I don't like to be interviewed, but I'm telling you the way it is. And who am I to say? I'm just repeating what Rabbi Mindel wrote down. Rabbi Mindel kept a yoman — a diary. I think the Rebbe told him: every single day, write down exactly what happened. There's so much — so much writing — that if, Im Yirtzeh Hashem, there won't be any opposition, I hope with Hashem's help there will be an opening for a lot of new material to come out, if things go the right way.

So this is my program today — a special program. And Im Yirtzeh Hashem, closer to the time the book is ready, I will let everybody know when it's ready and where they can buy it. And Im Yirtzeh Hashem, next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.