0038 - Rebbe's Response to Mrs Turner

00:01 When the Rebbe's mother, Rebbe Tzanchanah, came to America in Tovshin Zayin, she did not move into President Street right away. She lived on Lincoln Place. Lincoln Place is the block after Eastern Parkway. So there was a building on the-- almost by the corner of Lincoln Place in Kingston. There she lived with a lady called Mrs. Turner. And I knew this Mrs. Turner because she lived in the same building, actually at the same floor as my aunt. So I used to speak to her from time to time. When I knew her, the Rebbe's mother didn't live there, obviously. She lived on President Street. But I spoke to her, and I asked her about things that were going on when the Rebbe's mother lived there. So she told me that the Rebbe would come to visit her every day. She said the Rebbe would knock on the door. This was before the Neseus. The Rebbe would knock on the door, and she would go open the door. She never spoke to him. She, he, his haders akovet was so she didn't, you know, even dare to speak to him anything. She would open the door for him. The Rebbe would go inside and go into the room of his mother because his mother was like a boarder in this Mrs. Turner's house. She had a room. So the Rebbe went into the room of his mother, stayed there whatever amount of time he stayed, and then he left. But this he would do every day. And she,

01:13 as I said, she wouldn't speak to him. But once it was before Pesach, she said she has to ask him a question. So she told me when the Rebbe came, she asked him, "I want to ask you a question. Can I ask you?" So he said, "Sure." So she said it was before Pesach, and she was working very hard to clean for Pesach. And she asked the Rebbe, "How come it is that the women have such a hard job of cleaning before Pesach, and the men get off pretty easy? Why are the women so shuldig that the women have to work so hard?" So the Rebbe answered her. That's what she said, that, "Okay, but the men have to put on tefillin every day." Now, simple pshat means so the men have a burden the whole year of having to put on tefillin every day. There must be something deeper here. There must be some connection between tefillin and cleaning for Pesach. We know there is a connection between cleaning for Pesach and Shofar, the Vardichever's vort. The word kashrak is a Rosh HaTeives. Kasher, nishom, reidim, kratzen. These are all different words that have to do with cleaning for Pesach. And those, that's the Rosh HaTeives we say by Shofar of Tkiyah Shvarim through a Tkiyah. So that it says that vort from the Vardichever. But here, I don't know if it says anywhere that there is a connection between putting on tefillin and cleaning for Pesach. But this is what she said the

02:24 Rebbe answered her, that when she asked, "Why do the women have to work so hard and the men get off easy?" So the Rebbe said, "Yeah, but the men have to put on tefillin every day of the year."