0428 - Connection of Other Rabbanim to Chabad Part 10

00:00 In one of the previous voice notes, I spoke about HaRav Silver and his yachas to the Rebbe, his connection to the Rebbe. And I mentioned what I heard from HaRav Sharfstein, HaRav Zelig Sharfstein from Cincinnati, about how the Rebbe asked HaRav Silver to help get the Skulener Rebbe out of jail when he was arrested in Romania, and he did it even though it wasn't so simple. So I heard more protim, which reminded me that these are actually the protim I myself heard from HaRav Sharfstein. So I heard them from HaRav Mendel Sharfstein, the son of HaRav Zelig Sharfstein. This is what the story is that he reminded me, that the Rebbe himself spoke to HaRav Silver on the phone, and the Rebbe asked him to intervene, to go to the State Department and see what he could do to help get the Skulener Rebbe out of jail in Romania. And he told the Rebbe that he tried already, and it didn't work. But maybe he doesn't think it's going to work. So the Rebbe told him, "Aber ir zayt doch a ish matzliach. You should please try again. You are a person of luck. So maybe if you could try again." So he told HaRav Sharfstein that bederech hateva he saw that it's not going to help. But out of respect for the Rebbe, he said he'll try again. So he actually traveled to Washington, and there he had connection to some people. It seems like it all came because of his connection the previous

01:24 years to Senator Taft, who was the senator of Ohio, and he was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States government. So therefore, he had some connection to the people in the government. So he got them, somebody there, to write a memo to the Romanian government asking to release the Skulener Rebbe. So they send this memo. Now, this memo came actually at a time when Romania was waiting that the United States government should recognize the ambassador that they chose of Romania to the United States. And it was in the middle that they didn't get the recognition yet. They didn't get the confirmation yet. When they got this memo from the State Department asking them to release the Skulener Rebbe, in their mind, in the government of Romania, in their mind, it was as if the two things are connected, that they're telling him to do this, and the recognition of the ambassador depends on their accepting what they requested. So right away, they released him, and also they let him right away go out of the country. So HaRav Silver told HaRav Sharfstein that there's a ruach haKodesh from the Rebbe, that the Rebbe knew when to ask and knowing that it's going to be the right, ripe time that this will have atzlacha. So this is ruach haKodesh, but from that he doesn't get so nispal. He saw other gedolim having ruach haKodesh. What he was nispal was that afterwards the Rebbe called him to give him a dank, to give

02:51 him a thank you. And he said that he never saw by any other gadol that should call later on to give a thank you. Another thing that HaRav Sharfstein said, that he was once by the Rebbe for Yud Beis Tammuz, special Yud Beis Tammuz, special year, maybe it was the 30th Yud Beis Tammuz, maybe it's Tov Shen Yud Zion, but it was a special Yud Beis Tammuz. And the Rebbe told HaRav Sharfstein that as soon as you come back to Cincinnati, make a special mesiba for Yud Beis Tammuz and have HaRav Silver be from the rosh hamedabrim, from the main speakers. And he said, "Do it as fast as you can, as soon as you can, because if not, it'll go into the three weeks and then you won't be able to do it. You won't want to do it." But then the Rebbe said, "If he can't do it right now, so soon, then wait till after the three weeks." When HaRav Sharfstein came back, so he spoke to HaRav Silver, he told him what the Rebbe said. And so he said that if the Rebbe asked that it should be done soon, so for sure it should be done soon, and please do that. So they made right away a melaveh malkah that Motzaei Shabbos, and he was from the main speakers. Another thing he told me, that HaRav Silver told his father, v'neged the Friediker Rebbe, and some people sometimes take it as him like saying it as a chassidun, he said

04:06 he spoke to the Friediker Rebbe in inyonim of Shulchan Aruch Eretz Chaim, and he could say that he was from the biggest geonim in Shulchan Aruch Eretz Chaim. Now, some people take it as if he was saying all the Friediker Rebbe knew was Eretz Chaim, but the way he told it, HaRav Sharfstein was a little different. He told him that the other inyonim in the other halakot Shulchan, he didn't speak to him, so he has no idea. But this he saw that he is from the top keem in America in Eretz Chaim. But bechlal we know that his connection to the Rebbe was that the acheirus he had for the Rebbe was very strong.