0472 - Reconnecting with Gateshead - Mr. Cohen - Mrs. Tirtza Schapiro

00:01 My wife went to seminary to Gateshead for three years. Before she went for the first year, she came to one of the sichas when the Rebbe spoke to the women, that afterwards the women were able to go up to the Rebbe and ask for a bracha and ask for advice. So she went over to the Rebbe and asked for a bracha for her going to Gateshead, and the Rebbe gave her a bracha. When she came back after the first year, there was a sofek if she should go back. And since she came from overseas, the seder was that you were able to go into yechidus. So she went into yechidus herself to the Rebbe and asked the Rebbe if she should continue going back to Gateshead. And the Rebbe said it's kedai to finish and go back. After she came back after the second year, in Gateshead there's a cheshbon of three years, she again was able to go into yechidus. She went into yechidus and asked the Rebbe again whether she should continue, and the Rebbe said it's kedai to finish, she should go back. And the Rebbe also started asking her about what's going on there. He asked her about Mr. Cohn, how he's doing. And the Rebbe said that we even have a correspondence. The Rebbe was bringing out that there is a closeness there with Mr. Cohn, who was the, one of the founders of Gateshead, and he was also the menayel. He ran the whole seminary. And the Rebbe told

01:12 her that there is correspondence between them. In that same tekufa, Rabbi Yomah Garadeski, who was the Rebbe's bokel, the Rebbe's shliach to Europe, came to Gateshead, and he spoke to Don Holler there, to Mr. Cohn, et cetera. And he also spoke individually to some of the Lubavitcher girls. And he spoke to her individual also, and he asked her what's going on there, and he asked her about Mr. Cohn. They spoke. She didn't even know why he did this, but that's what happened there. Now, years later, we saw a letter from the Rebbe where he writes to Rabbi Yomah Garadeski asking him to go to Gateshead. He writes, "Don't make it like an official visit that you're coming to visit, but make it as if you're passing by and you're going and you're visiting it, visiting this seminary." And the Rebbe says to him to go there to find out because he heard that there is some kind of weakness in the kesher, in the yachas, in the relationship of the seminary in Gateshead to Lubavitch. And the Rebbe wanted to know what's going on there, why this happened. So we understand that the time that he came to Gateshead at that time and he spoke to her must have been then when he did the shlichas of the Rebbe to go find out what's going on. Now, what ex- the lashon I'm saying is not exactly the lashon of the letter. I don't remember the lashon, but that was the treifen of the letter. Now,

02:24 what the answer was and what he wrote to the Rebbe, we don't know. But this is what we know, that the Rebbe sent him on a shlichas to find out. And it seems like that by, when he told her by yechidus of Mr. Cohn, that means that the Rebbe felt that there is a correspondence, there is a kesher, there is a closeness. So the Rebbe wanted to find out why that closeness became weaker. Now, exactly the answer that he gave to the Rebbe, we don't know. But this is what seems like the Rebbe s- says the Rebbe sent him for, and it seems like that visit was the visit that he did the shlichas of the Rebbe.