0051 - Mr. Fisher Putting on Tefilin

00:00 What I'm gonna tell now is even though it's not something that I saw the Rebbe do or the Rebbe write or something, but it has to do with something that the Rebbe said, even though it's not a story with the Rebbe himself, but it's something about what the Rebbe said. And this is that I think it was in the beginning of the Lamedz, Tzach in New York arranged that people should go to the armory Sunday morning. Sunday morning in the armories, they were able to have an hour of services for-- religious services for the soldiers. So they would send two people to each armory to-- for an hour, and the two people would divide the work. One person would stand in front and pray with them, so to speak, say certain tefillahs in English, and the other person would be in the back, and he would go from person to person, from soldier to soldier, to put on tefillin. My route was I used to go with Mr. Fisher. If I met Mr. Fisher, he was in Skver of the Rebbe Chinginger from Baltimore, a mamish, a Baal Shem's kerid, a real Tosha terid, but a hartsikerid, a real Baal Shem's kerid. So I went with him. I was the one that would say the services, and he was the one that was asking the soldiers to put on tefillin. So one of the Sundays when I went with him, so I was standing up front and, uh, saying what the tefillahs with him, watching

01:10 what's happening. There was about forty, fifty soldiers, and I watched him, and I saw that he walked over to the first guy in the back, asking him to put on tefillin. And the say there was, as we understand, if the first guy said yes, then the-- automatically went further. But if the first guy said no, the probably the second would say no too, and it's very hard to get the people to put on tefillin. So this time I watched, and I saw he walked over to the first guy at the end, that he's the last person, first guy that he was able to approach, and he asked him to put on tefillin. I saw from far, and I'm watching, and the guy said no, like basically was-- laughed at him and said no. Then he went over to the second, and I saw the same thing happened, uh, and I understood that would happen, the second, the third, the fourth. And I'm watching. Then I see a moment later, he goes-- calls out the sec-- the first guy and says something, whispers for a few moments something into his ear, and I see the guy agree to put on tefillin. And if he agreed, the second guy agreed, the third guy agreed, and a whole bunch of people put on tefillin. I was very surprised. What did he say to him? So on the way back in the car, I asked him, "Mr. Fisher, what did you say to the soldier that made him put

02:12 on tefillin and automatically shlepped the rest?" So he says there's a sicha that the Rebbe said in Tov Shin Yud Alef, and this is a sicha in Shvuos Tov Shin Yud Alef. The Rebbe said to somebody that you have to be mekarev other Yidden. You have to speak to them about Yiddishkeit. And the Rebbe mentioned tefillin and Shabbos, and even though he might laugh at you now, but later on he will understand it, and it'll sevetem de-neemen. It'll affect him. And the Rebbe said to this person, "Eibe Shem Tzach, if you're embarrassed, so you could tell him like this. And if you tell him this, this will help." And he said to him, "Tell him," and he said it in Yiddish, as we have his sichas in Yiddish. "Asefran einer a Yid Schneerson vos a ken nit ken English. Er red English mit a meyr dikn accent, az man farsteit nor helft oder fertl fun dem vos er red. Iz er red az eine zachen vos iz nit vi es kumt oyf in Amerike. I kent im dos zogen fun mayn nome, vet es poyln." Translated into English, said, "If you're embarrassed, you tell him that there's a person by the-- a Yid by the name of Schneerson, that he doesn't even speak English. He speaks English with a terrible accent, that you don't even-- you understand only half or a quarter of what he says. And he says things which are not really acceptable, doesn't, uh, q-q-- in America. So you tell him this

03:26 in my name, and it'll help." So this Mr. Fisher tells me that he had typed up, had somebody type up just those few lines, that there's a person, a Yid Schneerson, doesn't speak English, the whole line in Yiddish, and he chazered out bal peh. And he took out from his pocket the piece of paper where it had all these words in Yiddish, and he knew it bal peh. And the Rebbe says, "If you say it, it'll have an effect." So he said, "What I did was I called out the first soldier, and I said to him in his ear these words in Yiddish." The soldier would obviously understand a word of Yiddish. He said these words to him in Yiddish. And when he said these words to him in Yiddish, the soldier took out his hand and allowed him to put on tefillin, and then the second one and the third one. So here I see-- saw the emunah pshuta from an ish pashut that believed in the words of the Rebbe. When the Rebbe said these words, he chazered out these words bal peh, and he said these words, and that's what actually payled. If he be- be- really meant it with ha'emes, like the Rebbe says, "If you say it in my name, vet es poyln." And I saw it be- in the boser how this payled, even though he said it to him in Yiddish.