0048 - R' Zalman Gurevitz's Visit to Russia Part 2

00:01 Now, Rav Zalman Gurevich brought along with him tefillin that he was told there that this is the Alter Rebbe's tefillin. And he managed to get it through, and he brought it to the Rebbe. And he gave it to the Rebbe, and it looks like the Rebbe accepted it, that this was the Alter Rebbe's tefillin. Now, when people knew about it, they asked him that we'd like to see it. So he asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said yes. But it should be done the way it was done, a story in Lubavitch. And I think it's in Atomim, there's a story that someone brought to the Rebbe Rashab, the Baal Shem Tov's tefillin, and people wanted to see it. So the Rebbe Rashab said, if I remember correctly, that's what it says there, that only those who went to the mikveh should be able to see it. Somebody, probably the person who brought it, will stand in the middle of the shul, and all the people who want to see it, and they went to the mikveh, could walk by and they could look at it. And the same thing here. Rav Zalman Gurevich, this was Aseres Yimchuvei Tov Shin Chavov. Rav Zalman Gurevich stood in the middle of the shul upstairs by the bima, holding the Alter Rebbe's tefillin, and everybody walked by, people who knew that they had to go to the mikveh. Some people would go anyway, many people would go anyway, but they went somewhere special for this, and they would pass

01:07 by, and they were able to see the Alter Rebbe's tefillin. Now, he wouldn't let anybody touch it. The only thing he let was there were some people who wanted to make an impression of the shin, the outside shin of the bayis, the shlosh. Some people wanted to make an impression to see how it should be, so that he allowed. And I think it was from then that they made a little change in the shin on the bayis. Till then, the shin that was on the bayis of the shlosh didn't take up the whole space of the shlosh from top to bottom. It started a little bit lower than the top. From then on, they started making it higher, I think, because of this. But he wouldn't let anybody look at the parshas, but he would let them look at the bayis, and everyone saw it, and some people made this impression. Later on that same morning, after everything finished, I happened to be walking by by the Gan Eden Atach, and I walked up the steps that went up to the second floor. For some reason, I went up there. And on the second floor, on the side, I see Rav Zalman Gurevich standing with Rav Shaya Matlin. Rav Shaya Matlin was the Rebbe's sefer. And I see Rav Zalman Gurevich showing Rav Shaya Matlin the parshas. And I found out later what happened. The bayis was open, because when he went through customs from Russia, I don't know how he got it through, but

02:24 the peil, they forced him to open up to see what's inside. So the bayis was open, and he was showing Rav Shaya Matlin, the Rebbe's sefer, he was showing him the parshas. So later on, I went over to Rav Shaya Matlin, and I asked him. I think he was the one that told me that the reason it was open was because they forced him to open, so it made the synth was open anyway. He showed to Rav Shaya Matlin. And I asked if Shaya Matlin knew, were these parshas the ksav that we know as the Alter Rebbe's ksav? So he told me, these words, ich vil din ish zogen, I don't want to tell you. So I don't know what that means, that maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was from the Alter Rebbe before he made the nuksav, because the Alter Rebbe had tefillin before that too, or whatever, I don't know. But this is the words that he told me, ich vil din ish zogen. So we don't know from that whether it was. But lepeil, it seems like the Rebbe at Ognodum and accepted that this is the Alter Rebbe's tefillin, and that's what Rav Zalman Gurevich brought from Russia.