Ep. 37: When The Rebbe Explained What the Word ‘Frum’ Means with Rabbi Levi Garelik

00:00 Speaker 1 Now, Baruch Hashem, I have semicha. I have a few semichas, but, uh, but this is my semicha, where she writes, "Levi Yitzchak bli ein hare a gantzter bocher. Levi Yitzchak a gantzter bocher." I was only three years old at the time. Okay? "B'brichas kol tov ve'sa'yim. De'resh hishleimus ve'hatzlachaskhem." And her signature.

00:24 Speaker 2 I'm Yossi Kamen. Welcome to Among Chasidim by Der Her, an ongoing farbrengen about life as a Chasid, our vibrant connection with the Rebbe, and inspired living shaped by the way he teaches us each and every day. Today's episode is brought to you by Keren Hachamash. Keren Hachamash is a fund that was started by the Rebbe right after Chof Beshvat in honor of the Rebbezin. Stay tuned later in the episode to hear more about it. Okay. Shalom Aleichem, Rabbi Gorelik. How are you?

00:57 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem. It's a pleasure to be here.

00:59 Speaker 2 Okay. And today is a special podcast that we're doing. Um, it's not visible in the, uh, on the screen, on the cameras, but we have an audience of many, many bochurim that are watching, uh, us, uh, have this conversation as part of the Yom Iyun, Yud Shevat of the Vaad HaMediah Temimim. So it's a special, a special edition. Shakear for being here.

01:21 Speaker 1 My pleasure.

01:23 Speaker 2 Okay. So I wanna begin and ask you, um, many people have their own story, but, uh, then there's a story that comes before them. So you have illustrious fathers, illustrious zeidas, and, uh, maybe we, uh, can begin that way. I was thinking perhaps we should start with talking about your, uh, famed zeide, Reb Shalom Posner. How does that sound to you?

01:50 Speaker 1 Excellent. There's plenty what to say about my zeide. Um, just by introduction, I have two zeides, my father's father and my mother's father. So you're starting with my mother's father, that's Reb Shalom. But my other zeide was also Reb Chaim Meir Gorelik, and they both learnt in Lubavitch. My Zeide Chaim Meir ended up later in Israel, which we'll talk about later if you want to. My Zeide Reb Shalom is as follows. His zeide, Shalom's zeide, his name was Zusha Posner. My uncle Zusha Posner is named after his zeide. His zeide and his brother came to America, le'erech in the 1880s. Their son, a whole bunch of sons, but one of them, his name was Yitzchak Zalman. Yitzchak Zalman was a bocher, and he saw that here in America he cannot be frum. He went back to Russia. As a matter of fact, Rabbi Jacobson, Reb Yisroel Jacobson, in his sefer, Zichron Livnei Yisroel, he writes the history of, um, Lubavitch in America. He remembered my zeide's zeide from, uh, he was actually in Russland, he was a shuster. He was a, a shoemaker. He came to America, and he made a shoe called the Posner shoe. I have one at home, uh, an original box called the Posner shoe from 1920, 1930. And Rabbi Jacobson writes in there, "Gi'var nam me'le di kirkvir. Do me'le di kirkvirim." But his son went back to Russia. He went back to Russia, and, uh, my zeide was born, uh, Taf Resamach Beis, same year as the Rebbe.

03:24 Speaker 2 Same year as the Rebbe.

03:26 Speaker 1 Uh, f- when he was about, uh, seventeen, eighteen, his father, Rabbi Jacobson actually has this story in his Zichron Livnei Yisroel. They, uh, he d- was doing some business with some Goyim, and they got into a fight with a Yidden, and they took the Yidden and put him on a raft on the river. They blew it up, and, uh, everybody sunk. My zeide was then a bocher, and he waited a few days by the water. When the bodies came up, so then he recognized his father, he put him on his shoulder, and he brought him to Kehillas Yisroel.

03:55 Speaker 2 Wow.

03:57 Speaker 1 Earlier, in Taf Res Ayin Hey, ac- this is just a introduction. I was once walking with my Zeide Reb Shalom in front of Seven seventy, right after my chassan in Taf Shin Mem Hey, and all of a sudden he stopped by Seven seventy, and he looks up at the building. And I saw he, like, we went somewhere else, and he tells me, "Levi, hein te kevor," was after Pesach. "Hein te kevor this week is zibetsikior fun mein niskabel. It's seventy years from mein niskabel." Niskabel means accepted.

04:28 Speaker 2 In Lubavitch.

04:29 Speaker 1 In Lubavitch. Vos heyst? Hundreds and thousands of bochurim came to Lubavitch. They weren't accepted. Most boys who came, they wanted to be accepted in Lubavitch, were not accepted. Chonya Morozov came in, Ranat, Tishrei Ranat he came. And his whole group that came with him, nobody was accepted. He was the only one by mazal, a whole long story. But my zeide, he had a mazal. He came the last zman of Lubavitch, the last semester, because the Rebbe Rashab left Lubavitch in Taf Res Ayin Vav right after Tishrei, n- uh, nineteen si- sixteen. Theee... So Taf Res Ayin Hey was the last semester. My zeide was born in Samach Beis. Right after his bar mitzvah was Ayin Hey. And he did not need to go through a test in order to get his niskabel. Why? Because he came from a city called Rament. In Rament, the mashpia was Reb Itche the Masmid. Anybody who came with hatzlacha for Reb Itche the Masmid didn't have to go through-

05:30 Speaker 2 Automatically

05:31 Speaker 1 ... any tests. Automatically. So my zeide was in Lubavitch in Taf Res Ayin Hey. Then later was the story with his father. Taf Res Peh, four years later when the Rebbe Rashab passed away, he wasn't there in Rostov. He was in Rostov for Tishrei. He told me a lot of stories about that Tishrei. Stam, just an interesting point, uh, he told me that Sukkos, he saw it himself, the Rebbe was sitting in the Sukkah, so gi' plokhe taring-

05:57 Speaker 2 You're talking about the Rebbe Rashab?

05:57 Speaker 1 The Rebbe Rashab, yeah. My zeide always said the Rebbe. He didn't say which Rebbe. He was talking, the, my zeide was by the Rebbe Rashab. By the Friediker Rebbe and by the Rebbe. He always said the Rebbe. There's a very famous story that I'm gonna get back to the story of the Sukkah in a minute, that, uh, he used to say, "The Rebbe is ." Back and forth. The story is in Lubavitch, the way it used to work is the Rebbe Rashab set a Meimer every Friday night, and the Meimer used to be Friday night before Kadvna. After Kaddish, they would stop. They would go to the center of the room. There used to be a, a mem, four, uh, tables, and, uh, there were two chairs in, uh, on the two sides, uh, in inside. The Rebbe Rashab would sit in one, the Friediker Rebbe in the other, and the Rebbe Rashab would look into the eyes of the Friediker Rebbe during the whole Meimer. That's how the whole Meimer went for about 45 minutes to an hour, but that a clam. But one time-- So usually Friediker Rebbe used to come first, and then the Rebbe Rashab would come. But one time, somehow the Rebbe Rashab came, and the Friediker Rebbe wasn't there yet, so the Rebbe Rashab was waiting till the Friediker Rebbe came. So that's how my zeide said the story. The Rebbe should come in. Uh, the-

07:12 Speaker 2 The Rebbe should come in

07:12 Speaker 1 ... the Rebbe not going to come in. You know, the Rebbe... Anyways, my zeide used to say always the Rebbe. So in Ayin Hey he came to, he was accepted in Lubavitch. Taf Resh Peh he was there for Suk- for Tishrei, and-

07:24 Speaker 2 You're saying a story in the Sukkah.

07:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. So at Taf Resh Peh, uh, in the Sukkah, he says, "So ." He says, "Aber afn sit fun rebben," on the Rebbe's place, "nisht a gank regn." He says they all saw it. On the place of the Rebbe, the Rebbe Rashab, there was absolutely no rain. Anyways, that was still Taf Resh Peh. Then Taf Resh Peh Beis, he was in Poltava. He went to jail. If you want, I'll tell you later the story.

07:46 Speaker 2 He was married?

07:47 Speaker 1 No, not yet. He became a chosid Taf Resh Peh Heh, 1915. Actually, my bubbe was at Satlin, famous Abarbanel at Satlin, a sister. Her other sister was already married to Reb Chaim Fagin, the secretary of the Friediker Rebbe. Unfortunately, they all got killed by the Nazis. But, uh, my zeide was a chosid in Taf Resh Peh Heh. His, my bubbe's brother had already moved to Israel. He was one of the Halutzim, one of the pioneers of the Zionists in Yemen. You know, they were starting the whole Zionist movement. So he was able to send a, a visa for my bubbe and her mother to get out from Russia, and they in turn sent to my zeide a visa to come to Eretz Yisrael, and that's how they all ended up in Eretz Yisrael. My parents, my grandparents got married in Eretz Yisrael.

08:40 Speaker 2 But what was the matter then? Were Hasidim trying to leave Russia, or they were supposed to stay? Like, what, what was the whole situation then?

08:47 Speaker 1 All the time, Hasidim tried to get out of Russia. From the early time of the Rebbe Rashab, Russia was not a good place for a Yid.

08:56 Speaker 2 So the fact that, that the Rabbeim remained and all the Hasidim remained was not necessarily by choice? Is that what you're saying?

09:01 Speaker 1 It wasn't by choice, no. Uh, the Rebbe Rashab had an idea of go- Don't we know we have only one picture of the Rebbe Rashab?

09:07 Speaker 2 Passport.

09:08 Speaker 1 Because it was his passport, 'cause he was planning to go to Eretz Yisrael. But then it changed, and, uh, if the Friediker Rebbe would've been able to leave Russia earlier, I'm sure he would've done it earlier. In the olden times you couldn't, there was no way you could leave Russia. It was a, it was a ganza gesheft how to, how to leave. That's why. So some, the Rebbe Rashab, the, the Friediker Rebbe did not let them leave. The Rebbe also till, till the '70s, '80s, the Rebbe, there were many people the Rebbe didn't let them leave Russia.

09:33 Speaker 2 Rebbe, there wa- there was a point that the, Hasidim were encouraged to stay.

09:37 Speaker 1 Some.

09:37 Speaker 2 'Cause there were other Yidden that left right when communism-

09:40 Speaker 1 Some, some

09:40 Speaker 2 ... started. Just, just, they just left.

09:41 Speaker 1 Those who were able to, left. The problem was everybody was afraid to leave because you're gonna come to America, you're gonna become frei. You're gonna come to Eretz Yisrael, you're gonna become frei. My great uncle, this great, my grandmother's brother, Rav Full, I remember him very well. I met him in Eretz Yisrael. When he came to Eretz Yisrael, he went a frum a bocher. He fasted on the boat to going to Eretz Yisrael for eight days. Sh- Almost fasted. He had potatoes, whatever, but he mamesh. He came to Eretz Yisrael, and they told him, "You wanna join the Halutzim? You wanna become part of the pioneers? You have to take your tefillin and throw them in the sea." By the time they came to Eretz Yisrael, my bubbe and my zeide, he was totally frei. And my bubbe's mother, her, her son, she begged him, ", come to shul." Uh, uh, uh, he walked halfway and he went back home. No, it was-- Everybody knew you leave Russia is ois. You're in America. There, you know, you have thousands of sh- thousands of shuls.

10:38 Speaker 2 Nusach Ari.

10:39 Speaker 1 Nusach Ari, Lubav-- In Maplewood, the Nusach Ashkenaz Shul is whatever, and the Nusach Ari Shul is a reformed temple, Anshe Lubavitch. That's a zichron. Here in America, everybody became... It, it was over. If... There was no way. That's doch my alte zeide went back to Russia as a bocher.

10:57 Speaker 2 Right.

10:58 Speaker 1 Anyways, so then, uh, my, uh, zeide had in America grandparents, uncles and aunts while he was in Eretz Yisrael, and he sent a letter to his zeide if he could send him an affidavit. An affidavit is that, uh, why should America allow, uh, refugees? They have somebody in America who's going to take care of them, so then they c- they could let them. There's many letters, for example, the Rebbe's father, Reb Levi Yitzchok. The Friediker Rebbe worked at the shul in Boston, sent an invitation to Reb Levi Yitzchok. This way they would be able to bring him to America. But probably it didn't work out. But that, that's what an affidavit is, that someone in America is taking responsibility for you. You're not gonna just be on welfare. So my zeide's zeide wrote to him, "I'll send you an affidavit. Only thing is you have to be careful, 'cause if you come to America, you're gonna have to cut two things, the beard and the tsittsit. Here in America, it's not gonna work." So my bubbe and zeide decided they're staying in Eretz Yisrael. Staying in Eretz Yisrael. They were poor, whatever, aber they're staying in Eretz Yisrael. Vahi hayom Taf Resh Peh Tes, the Friediker Rebbe came to Eretz Yisrael. Friediker Rebbe came to Eretz Yisrael, so my zeide was a talmid to Lubavitch, so he was one of the people who was meshammah with the Friediker Rebbe during that trip So he asked the Frierdiker Rebbe, my Zayde asked the Frierdike Rebbe for

12:14 Speaker 1 a broche for some kind of a job that he was going to get, and the Frierdiker Rebbe told my Zayde, "Shalom, do for in America." Nope, the Rebbe said, "Do for in America." So he ready right away sent a letter to his Zayde, and he said, "I'm planning to come anyway, so send me an affidavit." So the Frierdiker Rebbe went, was in Eretz Yisrael in Tammuz of. By, by Tishrei he was already here in America, the famous Tishrei. My Zayde, bubbe got there around Kislev time.

12:42 Speaker 2 To New York?

12:43 Speaker 1 To New Y- New Jersey. New Jersey, the way my bubbe would say. Got to New Jersey, and mid-Tammuz, it, it only took a few weeks, and my bubbe saw... She had two sons at that time. My uncle Zalman, Zalman Posner, and Label. They were the, they were, w- they're the Palestinians, because Israel then was called Palestine. So in their passport it says they were born in Palestine. We used to call them the PLOs. Anyways, so they, they were about, uh, four years old, four and three or five and four, you know, when they came to America. And my bubbe saw there's no way that they could become, uh, they could stay Frum. Now, so she wanted to go and ask a broche from the Frierdiker Rebbe. The problem was that in that trip, the Frierdiker Rebbe did not give yechidas to women.

13:29 Speaker 2 The trip in America?

13:30 Speaker 1 When they're that trip, that first trip the Frierdiker Rebbe came, he only gave yechidas-

13:34 Speaker 2 The whole year?

13:35 Speaker 1 The whole year. Only if it was a group of women. Aber privat-

13:39 Speaker 2 But Chabad, the Rebbeim had yechidas with women?

13:42 Speaker 1 Yeah, the Rebbe, the Rebbe had women.

13:44 Speaker 2 No, the Rebbe, no. But I'm saying the Rebbe HaShab-

13:46 Speaker 1 So that's why the Rebbe, the, the court needs to be up.

13:47 Speaker 2 But the Rebbe HaShab had-

13:49 Speaker 1 I don't... The other Rebbe. I know, I sh- I know Lake Karasi goes by the Rebbe, but they-

13:52 Speaker 2 And then the Futterfas was with his grandmother.

13:53 Speaker 1 Yeah, some. There, there were definitely stories, but I'm not sure exactly how.

13:57 Speaker 2 Okay.

13:57 Speaker 1 But one thing is sure, when the Frierdiker Rebbe was here in America, only groups. Her mazel was that who was the secretary with the Frierdiker Rebbe? Chache Fagan, her brother-in-law. He came to America. So she told Chache, "If you see any possibility that I could go into the Frierdiker Rebbe, let me know." Couple days later, she gets a call. Those days, the telephones were these, you know, like that. People don't know what telephones are anymore. And, uh, and Chache calls her and says, "Come right now." I think that the Frierdiker Rebbe then stayed, believe it or not, on Brooklyn Avenue in Crown Heights.

14:32 Speaker 2 We, we recently wrote in the Der Heer an article about it.

14:34 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah?

14:35 Speaker 2 There was a house.

14:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

14:36 Speaker 2 There was a special house.

14:37 Speaker 1 Sure.

14:37 Speaker 2 I, I, I can't remember who was-

14:38 Speaker 1 I think it's still there. I don't know.

14:39 Speaker 2 I think it was New York Avenue.

14:41 Speaker 1 I'm not sure.

14:41 Speaker 2 There was, there was two-

14:42 Speaker 1 I know it was right-

14:42 Speaker 2 There were two houses. Yeah.

14:43 Speaker 1 But at that time, 770 was still, uh, grass. There was no building there yet.

14:46 Speaker 2 Yeah.

14:46 Speaker 1 The building was built in 1933. That's four years later. Anyways, so she right away came running from New Jersey with the two kids. She came to the house where the Frierdiker Rebbe was, and she waited. All of a sudden, the door opened up to the Frierdiker Rebbe's room. Chache came out, and he saw my bubbe. So what did he do when a

15:35 Speaker 2 Wow. So Frierdiker Rebbe was sending to America.

17:07 Speaker 1 Sending to America invitations.

17:08 Speaker 2 Oh.

17:09 Speaker 1 So the regular invitation is the regular, and the other one is obviously to those who can't come, they should in their place say l'chaim, et cetera. Just Which is something that I wanna talk to you about later, you naming your kids for the Rebbe's mishpacha. Okay. We'll, we'll get there.

17:34 Speaker 2 We have plenty what to talk.

17:35 Speaker 1 Okay.

17:37 Speaker 2 Yeah.

17:37 Speaker 1 Anyways, so then my, my bubbe and Zayde were here in America. When the Frierdiker Rebbe came to America in Tof Shin, right, 10 years later, my bubbe and Zayde at that time were living in Chicago because my Zayde didn't have parnasa, and Rabbi Jacobson, Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, found him a job to be a shamash in the famous Bnei Noach Uvrishuv in Chicago. The Frierdiker Rebbe came off the boat, so the, the, most of Lubavitch, I'm talking about the, the money of Lubavitch at that time was in Chicago. There was even a, a half a minute that Frierdiker Rebbe was gonna move to Chicago, not even to Broo- not even to Brooklyn, to, uh, to New York. But anyways, so a few of the people of Chicago went to greet the Friediker Rebbe. My Zayde didn't have a penny to his name. He didn't have enough money to buy a train ticket to go to New York to see the Rebbe. So he told the guys, whoever was going then, "Do me a favor. When you see the Rebbe, the Friediker Rebbe, give him regards from Shalom Posner." When they approached the Friediker Rebbe and told him that they have regards from Shalom Posner, it kent them. So the Friediker Rebbe said, "Shalom. Shalom idoch miner." That was, is the lashon of Friediker Rebbe. Throughout those few months, my Bubby and my Zayde collected penny to penny to penny to penny to penny. So in the summer, my Zayde was able to go and visit the

18:57 Speaker 1 Friediker Rebbe in New York. Two years later, Tav Shin Beis, the Friediker Rebbe went to a visit to Chicago. Because Chicago is a story for itself. My Bubby cooked for the Friediker Rebbe when he was there for almost a week, and we have today actually the silverware that the Friediker Rebbe used, and we use it by atrix, by all the weddings, resembling yichud, that's what they use for the... Plus, because she cooked for the Friediker Rebbe, the Friediker Rebbe's rebbetzin sent my Bubby a m- a present, a, a set of 12, uh, you know, s-silverware. Uh, spoons, forks, everything. So this was all divided according to the family. But that was in Tav Shin Beis. So my Zayde was in Chicago. So when he went to yechidus, the Friediker Rebbe, so he told the Friediker Rebbe that he has now also an option to buy a hardware store, so he wants a bracha, him and somebody else. So the Friediker Rebbe told him, "Shalom, do far in Pittsburgh and open a yeshiva. You go to Pittsburgh and open up a yeshiva."

19:58 Speaker 2 How old was he?

19:59 Speaker 1 My Zayde was born Taf Resh summer Beis, and this was Tav Shin Beis, so f- uh, 50.

20:04 Speaker 2 So 50-

20:05 Speaker 1 Not summer. I'm paid. Uh, 40.

20:08 Speaker 2 So at 40 years old, the Friediker Rebbe is telling him, "Okay, abandon all these Parnassa things."

20:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

20:11 Speaker 2 "Go, go, go open up a yeshiva in-"

20:13 Speaker 1 Go to Pittsburgh. Now, interesting is I was always under the impression that he went that summer in Tav Shin Beis. A couple of years ago, I went to Chicago to speak, and I said this story, and I actually, I found in my Zayde's stuff something very interesting. I found a Shanah Tovah that the Friediker Rebbe sent to the Bnai Rueben Shul for that Rosh Hashanah when he came to America in Tav Shin. And it still had the scotch tapes. You know, that they was hanging on the wall. I guess my Zayde took it off after Yom Tov and he put it away. So Mamie's original. I went to speak in Chicago for Yutras Kislev. So I figured, let me bring them a nice present, and I took that then I put it in a nice frame. When I came then to speak, so I came in with this thing. Nobody knew what's inside. And, uh, I told them, you know, it's Rosh Hashanah, right? Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah And, uh, and the teacher who taught that class right after Pesach decided he's not continuing to teach them anymore. After Pesach, there's, there's only one month, there's no yeshiva. And this guy, he wasn't that Chassid, he was a-- And my Zayde couldn't watch how all these kids are gonna be without a teacher. So he stayed and taught them for a year and a half.

22:49 Speaker 2 Which school is this?

22:50 Speaker 1 Uh, one of the programs-

22:50 Speaker 2 The local schools there.

22:51 Speaker 1 Th- that was connected to Bnai Rueben somehow. So he stayed for another year, and he went in Tav Shin Gimel in the summer. That time when I started looking at the letters, I see that, that he went to Tav Shin Gimel. Anyways, it took a year. Before he left, he'd resigned from the shul because the Rebbe told him, the Friediker Rebbe told him go to. So he went over to the president of the shul, and he told him that he's resigning. She said, "Farvos? What's wrong? By what?" He says, "No, I'm going to Pittsburgh." He says, "Why are you going to Pittsburgh?" He says, "I'm going towards Pittsburgh to open up a yeshiva." So the-- But the president told him like this, "When David wax and grows, we have the Pittsburgh Zana Yeshiva. When here grass will grow, that's when there'll be a yeshiva in Pittsburgh." That was very, uh, encouraging, you know, for my Zayde, besides all the other problems that there were those days. Anyways, Tacky, he went to, uh, Pittsburgh, my Bubby, and they start-- Actually, the yeshiva started a year before. The Reb Mottel Oltime, who later was in the Bronx, he was a booker still. He went to Pittsburgh first. Those days it was musical chairs-

23:48 Speaker 2 Yeah

23:48 Speaker 1 ... you know. All the, the-

23:50 Speaker 2 All the-

23:50 Speaker 1 They were going from one place to another for a few years, and a young gift gave him-

23:53 Speaker 2 Now, you mentioned Bnai Rueben. Uh, I think, uh, Yisroel of Agrona was in Bnai Rueben. Rabbi Lieberman was there.

23:58 Speaker 1 I don't think Agrona was, but, uh, Lieberman-

24:00 Speaker 2 Yeah. There's a lot-- Musical chairs.

24:02 Speaker 1 No, but I'm saying I got like Yisroel Agrona who later went to Australia. He was in different places in the United States. Herschel Fogelman was different places. The way Herschel Fogelman would put it, Rabbi Herschel, Rabbi Herschel Fogelman, Harry Fogelman, he was in Worcester, but he was in different places first. He says, "Until Tav Shin Yud, it was musical chairs. Tav Shin Yud, the music stopped." Wherever you were, that's it. Anybody who wanted to go further, he used to come to the Rebbe and say, "You know, the Friediker Rebbe used to send me here." He says, "The Friediker Rebbe sent you where you are now. You wanna change? Go to the Friediker Rebbe. Don't come to me."

24:33 Speaker 2 On Yochvat Tav Shin Yud Aleph-

24:35 Speaker 1 Yeah

24:35 Speaker 2 ... in the Sichas, that's what the Rebbe says, that all the Shlichus, Shlichasin that the Friediker Rebbe had a rufe like-

24:40 Speaker 1 Yeah

24:40 Speaker 2 ... should continue. I mean, he said it publicly that-

24:41 Speaker 1 That's it. No, but that's when the musical chairs was over. Yeah. Richtig. Anyways, so my Zayde opened up the yeshiva. He continued this. This, uh, Rabbi Oltime started a little bit, but then my Zayde, of course, took it to the next level. When the first yechidus, they came to Friediker Rebbe, and of course, my Bubby and Zayde told the Friediker Rebbe that it's very, very hard. Side begashmin, side beruchnis, everything. Friediker Rebbe said, "But, uh..." This, again, I'm telling you the way my Bubby told me the story. The Friediker Rebbe said, "Ir zult acheren un zein." You should plow and seed. "Un ich vel gisn treren az es zol vakhn." And I will shed tears that it should grow. Once the Rebbe said that, gang awayter, you know, there was . So this was my Bubby and Zeidy. Then came Taf Shin Yud. And of course, my Zeidy came to New York, really to Yitzvat. Motzei Shabbos, he found out that, uh, my bu- my mother was a little girl, and she told me she remembers how my Zeidy made havdalah, mit on geshval in eygn, you know, she was crying like crazy. He came to New York. He came through next morning, and he was one of the people who had the zchus to make-- be by the tar of the Friediker Rebbe, and he did, he got the left hand. You know, the hand that the Rebbe used to put on film. He got the left hand. Um, uh, that was basically, and

26:07 Speaker 1 then the rest is history, how they-

26:09 Speaker 3 The rest is history

26:09 Speaker 1 ...Pittsburgh.

26:10 Speaker 3 Okay, so before we go to your parents, we, uh, we have to go to the, the other zeide, Chaim Yeh.

26:16 Speaker 1 Chaim Yeh. Yeah. There, there's still plenty to talk about Shalom. I mean, I have a lot of other stories, but, um, this is just, uh . It-- A lot of people asked when my Bubby passed away, this was in Taf Shin Nun. The Rebbe was out there by the levaya. First of all, the Rebbe after Taf Shin Lamed Ches, after 1978, the Rebbe stopped going out to levayas. The Rebbe used to, until Taf Shin Lamed Ches, till the heart attack, the Rebbe used to go out to every single levaya that used to come in front of 770. The levaya used to come in front of 770. Rabbi Groner would go into the Rebbe, tell him that the levaya is here, the funeral. The Rebbe would come out. The Rebbe would walk on the sidewalk, cross the street, go till the fire hydrant. It's that fire hydrant's still there in front of the-- Now it's in front of the museum. Those days it was in front of 796. The Rebbe would stop. The cars would go. Once all the cars were gone, the Rebbe would come back, wash his hands outside, and then go inside, go into the zal. The way, um, just for historical purposes, the way it used to work is you walk into the zal. On the right side, there's a table with benches, and over here there's a table with benches. We used to take away that table on the right side, the one under the clock. Take away the table. The

27:30 Speaker 1 place was emptied. It was just a bench, and the Rebbe would come in. He would sit down on the beginning of the bench. His hands were wet 'cause you don't dry your hands after a levaya. And the Rebbe would say yesh, I guess it was yesh, it was said that's the meaning, and the Rebbe would move from one place to another on the bench 'cause he's supposed to move seven times. I saw it dozens of times till Taf Shin Lamed Ches, and the Rebbe would, you know, move there. So, uh, but the Rebbe would stand by the fire hydrant for 10 minutes max. You know, once all the cars are gone-

28:00 Speaker 3 That's a long time, 10 minutes.

28:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, I said maximum.

28:03 Speaker 3 Yeah.

28:04 Speaker 1 Less. The, the cars to go by took, uh, two minutes, uh, another two minutes, whatever. But my Bubby, I didn't see it 'cause I went to the levaya to, to the airport. The Rebbe was out there for over a half hour or 40 minutes or something. Uh, there's a video.

28:20 Speaker 3 The video of the whole thing, yeah.

28:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's, it's amazing.

28:22 Speaker 3 It's-

28:22 Speaker 1 And you can see how Rabbi Groner goes over to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe continues looking, and everybody want to know why. I am not going to tell you why 'cause I have no idea why, and nobody knows why. But one thing that I will say is Taf Shin Yud, after Yitzvat, this was somewhere three, four months later. I don't know if it was in Iyar, in Sivan. The Rebbe wanted my uncle, Label Posner, which also just passed away, unfortunately, to go to an to California, which he did as a bocher, and that's why he wasn't here Yitzvat Taf Shin Yud Alef 'cause he was in California. He got married two weeks later. The Rebbe was the first one. The Rebbe was at the kiddushim was for him. But he wanted to come for Yitzvat.

29:02 Speaker 3 He's the first one after the, the, um-

29:03 Speaker 1 After the nisus. After the nisus.

29:05 Speaker 3 I think the Rebbe didn't do it the whole Aveilus.

29:07 Speaker 1 Yes, whole Aveilus didn't do it.

29:07 Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

29:08 Speaker 1 Af- Before the nisus there was, but another parshah. So then the Rebbe wanted my... Those days to go from New York to California, a bocher, it, it was a story, you know. And she asked the Rebbe, and when the Rebbe said that he would like Label to do that, my Bubby's reply to the Rebbe was, "." Taf Shin Yud in the summer . Now she bechalal had. I found a letter from my Zeidy to my parents from Taf Shin Chaf Ches. Tishrei Taf Shin Chaf Ches. That Rosh Hashanah in middle of Haveringin, the Rebbe sent up a bottle of wine to the lady's shul for Rebbe Tzvi Posner. Af- then a few minutes later, the Rebbe sent out a second bottle for all the ladies, zol ni zan ken jealousy. Okay? But that was, my Bubby was special lady. Anyway, so that's, uh, my Bubby and Zeidy. You know, everybody heard of Dr. Tursky? Dr. Tursky was in Pittsburgh, and he was a geshvarne chassid of my Zeidy. He was very close to him. If you want later, I'll tell you a whole story. But, uh, was, he learned to Lubavitch, was baal tzedakah rabbeim, and by him they would-- he never said Rebbe Rashab, Friediker Rebbe. Never. Always the Rebbe. And he told me once, "The Rebbe, when mir gefragt, 'Sholom, nach vem bistu genomnen? Who are you named after?'" I was trying to figure out, the Rebbe asked me since when did w-w, uh, uh, it, what was the occasion? Finally I

30:41 Speaker 1 figured out it was Rebbe Rashab that asked him that.

30:44 Speaker 3 He said, "Yeah."

30:45 Speaker 1 But, uh, he told me the Rebbe-

30:47 Speaker 3 Yes.

30:47 Speaker 1 Okay. Anyways.

30:49 Speaker 3 Other Chassidim didn't do that.

30:50 Speaker 1 What?

30:51 Speaker 3 The Rebbe-

30:52 Speaker 1 My Zeidy was-

30:53 Speaker 3 The Rebbe the kapte, the Rebbe the zun

30:54 Speaker 1 ... the Rebbe, and that's it. Never, never did he say yen Rebbe or, you know, garnish. Straight

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32:37 Speaker 1 My Zayde Chaim Meir, his family was basically Lubavitchers because I think that his father was even by the Rebbe Marash, Zayda Tzofme.

32:45 Speaker 4 The Shalom Peysner, his family was Lubavitch.

32:48 Speaker 1 Nope.

32:49 Speaker 4 They weren't? They weren't Chassidim?

32:50 Speaker 1 No.

32:51 Speaker 4 Okay.

32:52 Speaker 1 By Zayde was poshed in the Rabbin. That's how he ended up-

32:55 Speaker 4 Okay.

32:55 Speaker 1 Chassidim of Asmid, etc. No. The Posners? No, they all came to America.

32:59 Speaker 4 So Zayde Chaim Meir-

33:01 Speaker 1 There's even a svorah that they're any klach of the Rebbe's brother. And somebody asked my Zayde that. So my Zayde was always, you know, they always lived with the future, not with the past. If you want, I'll tell you later a whole interesting story about that. And we asked him once, "Is it true that we are any klach of him?" He said, "The man of Kimin." Like But he didn't deny it, and he didn't, uh... There was a psasvah, but I'm not sure. Okay?

33:31 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

33:31 Speaker 1 And my Zayde Chaim Meir, yeah, he was, all the brothers were lo- He actually was what he was the youngest, the youngest of the boys. And he ended up in Lubavitch because of his older brothers. One of them was a chozer, one of them was a sheikhet for the Rebbe Rashab. I mean, they were, yeah, they were all. And if I'm not mistaken, his father was with the Rebbe Marash. And we're working now on the whole family history, so I'm gonna get the exact details. But, uh, anyways, so my Zayde Chaim Meir, he learned to Lubavitch. Now, after he got married, he moved to Crimea. Now Ukraine, Crimea, the Duntutza. Now, Crimea was full of Yidden. Simferopol, all those places. Adkerekach that I think that the, the, the names on the train stations were wr-written in Lashon Kedes. With the Aleph Beis, you know, in the transliteration. And he would go from Matzah Shabbos till Friday around the little shtetlach. Do shrit, uh, mil, uh, teach the kids, you know, do all kinds of stuff. In Tafresh Pay Dalet, I think it was. It was before my father was born for sure. It was long time before Yidi Kerebbe. He had, my, my bubbe, my father's mother, she was at Rivlin, at Inikel of the Vilna Gaon.

34:47 Speaker 4 Cousin of the, uh, former president.

34:50 Speaker 1 Yes. Second cousins. When, when they came to Russia, to Israel, they second cousins. The same family. So the, when he, uh, he, he had brothers-in-law who were very wealthy. They weren't Chassidim, but they weren't, you know, they weren't, uh, they were fine, you know. And they decided they're gonna sell everything, get a few pieces of gold, put it into their, uh, leave Russia on Zachap Drogin and, uh. And my Zayde said he is not going until he has to have the free Yidi Kerebbe. They were going to, they decided to go to Eretz Israel. Those days there was a whole big tnuva to go to Eretz Israel, you know. The Zionists were starting and, uh, because Russia was, but as we said before, Russia was a tough place. So they decided they're gonna go to Eretz Israel. So my Zayde said, "No, he has to first ask the free Yidi Kerebbe." Came to, he was there, by the way, in Toferesh BeZayin, when the Yidi Kerebbe was in the Vagzal, when he said, "Hiya, Shema Yisrael, Elokeinu, Monu. Uzair Gufim, Zanish Gang and G- Onor di Gufim." You know the whole story. My Zayde was there in the train station. The, so my Zayde went to free Yidi Kerebbe. At that time, my father had two older sisters, Paraman Zalmanov. They were, let's say, five and four. Little girls. So Yidi Kerebbe asked my Zayde, "Bozog di kinder. What did the kids say about going to Eretz Israel?" And my Zayde said, "Actually, when he

36:16 Speaker 1 asks the kids, do they wanna go to Eretz Israel? The elder is zogged as if you'll gain." They had idea what Eretz Israel is like, you know, behind Pluto, okay?

36:26 Speaker 4 Pluto's not a planet anymore.

36:27 Speaker 1 Right, it's Oliver Shalom, but, but is he still there? Um, so the elder is zogged as if you'll gain. The elder one says she wants to go. The ingere, the little one, four-year-old, three, four-year-old, whatever she was, she's zogged, "Ich vil nisht." Whenever you say they were going to Eretz Israel, "Ich vil nisht. I don't want." That's what he told the Yidi Kerebbe. So the Yidi Kerebbe said, "Medar zach zuheren vos kleene kinder zoggen. You have to listen to what little kids say. Un du vest noch farn in Eretz Israel." Yidi Kerebbe said, "Du vest noch farn in Eretz Israel." Years later, after the 48 rebel left, and my Zayde was in Shlichas, and he, he was arrested, I don't know how many times. All the Russian Lubavitcher kids knew, if your father walks out of the house with Tallis and Tefillin with police, that means he's not coming back. They all knew that. My Zayde, whenever he used to walk out with the Tallis with the police, he would tell the kids, "Kinderlach, dayget nisht. Ich vel nokh ligin af Har Hazezim." That's what he kept on saying. "Ich vel nokh ligin af Har Hazezim." And he used to come back. Every time he came back. So, um, and eventually, they all left Russia, of course. My Zayde, it always hurt that when they left Russia, the family wasn't all united because one son stayed in Russia, he came out many years later, my uncle. And my Bubby, my father's mother, had passed away

37:56 Speaker 1 in the year Taf Shin in, on, on the operating table in Kharkov. The operation went bad, a ganz a meishe. So that's why the family decided whoever is in Israel will all have a place in Har Hazezim. We'll all be together. So that's the basic story of my Zayde Chaim Meir. He came to Eretz Yisrael. He was one of the first people to, uh, settle in Kfar Chabad. He had a lot of letters from the Rebbe then, and he never left Eretz Yisrael after that, so he wasn't there by my father's wedding. But, uh, yeah, but he was a staunch Chassid.

38:28 Speaker 3 Okay. So I wanna go to your parents, and, um, so your father... First of all, y- there's two s- different stories, your father and your mother. So your father, uh, okay, maybe we'll start with your father. Your father was born in Russia.

38:46 Speaker 1 Until a few years ago, no one knew where exactly he was born. Uh, he was born in Zhankoy, near Simferopol, yeah.

38:53 Speaker 3 How old was he when he, when they went to Eretz Yisrael?

38:55 Speaker 1 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

38:56 Speaker 3 So you go, go, go.

38:57 Speaker 1 After his Bar Mitzvah, he left with everybody f- with the famous echelon and... One second. Let's just get a little bit of history here. Once the, the war broke out, the Second World War, the place was going bananas, right? So my father was in Almaty. There were refugees. They were just running, running anywhere. So a whole bunch of refugees came to Almaty, where the Rebbe Levick's father was, the Rebbe's father was, Rebbe Levick. So he was there for over a year, maybe even two years, I don't know. He was there for a good while, and that's where he met Leibel Raskin, who later became the Shliach in Morocco, because they were both two little kids in the, in the train station for two weeks till they finally found a place where to stay. And from then, they were good friends till, till the end. So, um, from Almaty, then they all ran weiter to Tashkent to Samarkand. Now, what happened was people wanted to leave Russia, but it was impossible. Impossible. I think even the, the, the train system, I think, was different in Russia. The, the train tracks busted, so people shouldn't be able to run out, you know? So, um, when the Nazis came into Poland in 1939, right? The Jews in Poland had no clue what the Nazis are planning to do. They just knew the Nazis are conquering countries, but they didn't know what they're going to do. So the Yidden were split into basically two camps. Some said the N-

40:22 Speaker 1 the Nazis are normale mensen, you know? Some said no, and they ran away to Russia. So those that ran away to Russia, most of them got saved. They ran to Siberia, you know, as far as possible.

40:35 Speaker 3 Well, eventually the Nazis went into Russia, so they-

40:37 Speaker 1 Yeah, but they didn't make it all the way down there. They-

40:39 Speaker 3 Right. So they had to, they had to-

40:40 Speaker 1 Yeah

40:40 Speaker 3 ...go deeper into Russia.

40:41 Speaker 1 Sure. So but, but most of them got saved, sovkosov. It was hard. It was terrible, but, but most of them got saved. Those who stayed in Poland all went to the concentration camps. Geendikt. Now, Stalin, yemach shemo ve'zichro, for some reason, made a very interesting law after the war was over, that all those that have a Polish passport could come back from Poland, from Russia back to Poland. So what did the Chassidim do? They figured they'll make false Polish passports in the Chust, which is a parsha for itself. It's a long, long story how that happened.

41:16 Speaker 3 That's how all the Lubavitcher Chassidim-

41:17 Speaker 1 That's all the-

41:17 Speaker 3 ...that had Russia

41:18 Speaker 1 Right. And when you look, there's a, there's a paper that came out not too long ago that has a list of all the people. On that first page, you have a Rabbonis Chana, the Rebbe's, Rebbe's mother, and on that same page is my father, my father's family. The mammish on the same exact page. They were on the same train, and there was a whole story with my two aunts, how the Rebbes Chana did not wanna leave Moscow and go. She was afraid. And then they went up, and they told her. She said, "Uh, with them I will go." A, a whole long story.

41:43 Speaker 3 So one second. But I just wanna go back to Almaty. Why were, why were, why were they in Almaty? Weren't most Chassidim in, in Tashkent or, uh-

41:51 Speaker 1 Afterwards. Tashkent was later.

41:53 Speaker 3 Samarkand.

41:54 Speaker 1 Yeah. But from Almaty they went to Tashkent.

41:56 Speaker 3 So I remember I once spoke to your father about, um, things that he remembered from the Rebbe's fathers.

42:01 Speaker 1 Right.

42:01 Speaker 3 Maybe, maybe you can talk about that a little bit.

42:04 Speaker 1 My father never saw the Rebbe's father.

42:06 Speaker 3 He said a story about steps. That's what I remember, something about steps, that he almost saw him. Am I making that up?

42:12 Speaker 1 I don't know. The main... He never saw.

42:15 Speaker 3 Okay.

42:15 Speaker 1 That's the fact. Because they were in the different part of town, and my Zayde was afraid to take my father. My Zayde went a few times. My Zayde Chaim Meir, he did. But, uh, my father never saw. As a matter of fact, when it was Shnas HaShleishim, 30 years from, from, uh, the Rebbe's, from Rebbe Levick's, uh, petircas. He passed away in Taf Shin Dalet, 1944. This was 1974. My father was in Kfar Chabad, and the Rebbe said then by the Farbrengen that all those who were Meshamesh my father should say with me L'Chaim. My father, of course, didn't say. Then the Rebbe, um, something happened over there. But there was one Farbrengen where the Re- I don't think, I don't know if it was that Farbrengen or an, a later one, where the Rebbe- Asked the Dovid Raskin, 'cause Rabbi Dovid Raskin used to stand here on the Rebbe's, uh, left, on the Rebbe's left, yeah. To ask my father who was standing in that bar mitzvah bringin', if he was ever, ever, if he was ever meshamesh. My father smiled. No, he didn't respond because then the, the Rebbe asked Dovid knew, so if Dovid told the Rebbe, "Er shmechelt" . Rebbe Dovid was a soldier, soldier number one.

43:36 Speaker 3 That's, that's your father's signature look, uh, the shmechel.

43:39 Speaker 1 Yeah, and my father wouldn't answer the Rebbe. My father always, if you remind me later, I'll tell you, all stories-

43:44 Speaker 3 I saw a video by Dallas, Rebbe's asking him questions. He doesn't, doesn't say-

43:47 Speaker 1 My father, my father, I have a whole story to explain that. He never answered a question. The Rebbe asks a question, it's a question. Yeah. You know, the, the Rebbe doesn't need you to give him information. The Rebbe knows information. He doesn't need you to, whatever. Anyway, so then, so he told the Rebbe, "Er shmechel." So the Rebbe said, "Freg im," ask him, "Eber tamal only gosna glos tey?" If he ever poured a cup of tea. Of course, my father didn't answer. And the Rebbe said from that swing, "Still they should say l'chaim." My father was very close to the Rebbe Tzikhaner when he was, say, in Russia, say, in Pockling. My aunts were very close to the Rebbe Tzikhaner.

44:27 Speaker 3 So this is after the stalkers of the Rebbe's father?

44:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, after. Sure, sure. Not even in Almata, this is already later. And they helped her a lot. It's a whole long story. They helped her a lot, so, and she sent a beautiful letter to my aunt later, years later to... There was a time when they were running whatever and, and she, my aunt stood in front of Rebbe Tzikhaner 'cause the Nazis were shooting, and she-

44:46 Speaker 3 What do you mean the Nazis were shooting?

44:47 Speaker 1 In the, in the train station over there. Episamais-

44:50 Speaker 3 The Nazis?

44:51 Speaker 1 Seemingly. The, the Germans, the, the... It was episa story there. I'm not exactly sure the details.

44:56 Speaker 3 This is, so this is before the-

44:57 Speaker 1 Later, later, they go a- Do you know how many Jews got killed after the war?

45:01 Speaker 3 By the Nazis?

45:02 Speaker 1 By the Polish and by the Dutch, by the, the, the, the-

45:04 Speaker 3 Okay

45:04 Speaker 1 ... ‎at all. So there was a, they were, they were shooting at them, and my aunt stood in front of the Rebbe Tzikhaner to block just in case they're Dutch. And the Rebbe Tzikhaner appreciated that for, for leil v'vod. Anyway, so there was one year, believe it or not, uh, Tashim Gimel, Mem Gimel, yes. 1983. The Rebbe left for bringing, uh, Shabbos, Chofov. The Rebbe said that all those who were shammash, my father should say l'chaim. And my father didn't, because he figured last time was just a hero show, you know, the Rebbe. Far tik, the bringing finished. The next Shabbos was Shabbos Memarchim Elul. The next Shabbos. So, the Rebbe spoke at first sicha. Second sicha, the Rebbe said, "We have to be mashlim. We have to fill in what we didn't finish last week." The first thing is the Sium. The Rebbe always, when he's made a Sium by Yahrtzeit, the next Shabbos he will discuss it maybe once or two times or three times. And the Rebbe spoke for a long time, at least a half hour, 40 minutes on the Sium. And then the Rebbe paused, and the Rebbe said, "‎." There's another thing that we have to fill in here. And the Rebbe said that, uh, "Last week I asked that all those that were meshamesh my father should say ‎. There's someone here," I'm not gonna say his name 'cause he's standing right here, "who did not." And the Rebbe and the whole thing, yeah, he's

46:28 Speaker 1 always like a honor, he's a very humble, this and that and whatever. But being that this is something that has to do with me, with the ‎of my father, so therefore it's missed. And then the Rebbe said, "And if he doesn't think that I mean him, it's niche." You know? That. And the Rebbe went back to the Sium for another half hour. At the end of the sicha, the Rebbe turned like that towards my father, so my father said l'chaim, and, uh, that was just 'cause Almata. That was, um, yeah. Anyway, so, so my Zayde w- w- where we were back to, to my father.

47:01 Speaker 3 See, I, I guess we're talking about now, um, how they left Russia.

47:05 Speaker 1 Right. Okay. So I said then the, the Polish passports, right? So they went out. My parents went, my father went to Pockling. He was there for a good two years, I think.

47:13 Speaker 3 And that's where Rebbe Tzikhaner was also.

47:15 Speaker 1 Rebbe Tzikhaner was there too, right. That's why father didn't see the Rebbe in Paris because my father's... She went from Pockling to Paris in 1947, and they were in Pockling till 1948.

47:25 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

47:25 Speaker 1 So that's why my father didn't go to Paris, so didn't see the Rebbe then.

47:28 Speaker 3 Right. And from Pockling, they went straight to Israel?

47:31 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no. For they went to Paris.

47:33 Speaker 3 So they went to Paris.

47:33 Speaker 1 They went to Benoit. Sure.

47:35 Speaker 3 Oh, he lived in Benoit.

47:36 Speaker 1 It wasn't so much learning in Benoit. They, they, that's where the Yeshivah... As the older plate moved, they moved, they come to Benoit.

47:42 Speaker 3 Oh, so all the plate in Paris moved to Benoit.

47:44 Speaker 1 Sure.

47:44 Speaker 3 That's what happened.

47:45 Speaker 1 There was a hotel called Hotel Modern. That's where all stayed. They all had, they'd all got one room or a half a room or whatever, and they all stayed in the Modern for years. That's why 1954, Tashin Yadaled, the Rebbetsin. You know the Rebbetsin made a trip-

47:58 Speaker 3 She came-

47:58 Speaker 1 ... to, to Paris, uh, secret.

48:01 Speaker 3 Why did she go?

48:01 Speaker 1 The Rebbe, 'cause the Rebbe wanted to have first, firsthand information how the plateim are doing. No, but there was one person only that knew that she's coming, uh, Father Wilshansky, and he was put in charge to-

48:13 Speaker 3 He, 'cause he was, he was there. He was-

48:15 Speaker 1 He was there. He was in charge. He was in-

48:16 Speaker 3 The Lishka.

48:17 Speaker 1 The Lishka. So therefore, but otherwise nobody knew who the Rebbetsin is, what, 'cause the Rebbe wanted to have firsthand information of, uh, what's going on. Okay? Anyway, so my fa- they were in Pockling, then they came to Benoit.

48:28 Speaker 3 I think the Rebbe went with her to the airport. I think that's what they say.

48:30 Speaker 1 Say again.

48:32 Speaker 3 They say that the Rebbe went with her to the airport.

48:33 Speaker 1 Sure. Berel Unik told me himself.

48:35 Speaker 3 Right.

48:36 Speaker 1 The first year after Choveshvat, I had to speak for the ladies, you know, I used to give a shiur then in Crown Heights. I, I still do. And I went over to the Berel, personal friend, and I asked him, "Berel, you have to tell me something that you never said yet, 'cause I have to speak for the ladies." So he told me that he, till now he never wanted to say it, but he's going to. And he said that when the Rebbetsin went into the airport, they went in the same taxi. He was sitting in the front, and the Rebbe and the Rebbetsin in the back. They came to the airport. He schlepped the suitcases. He went to the check-in. The Rebbe and the Rebbetsin were standing over there in the back, and he did all the check-in, all the paperwork. She, the Rebbetsin just came for a moment. Then when the Rebbetsin had to leave to go to the plane, the Rebbe asked the Berel Unik if there's a porch from where you could see the planes. And he said, "Yeah, there's upstairs." So they went up to the porch, and they waited until those days with-

49:30 Speaker 3 So before 9/11, you could go all the way

49:32 Speaker 1 I was gonna say, those, not even 9/11, yeah, before 9... We used to walk to the plane. We used to get like the entree, only the president.

49:37 Speaker 3 Oh, you mean, you mean that you, that you walk on the thing.

49:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, we used to push, all walked up.

49:39 Speaker 3 But I'm saying today you can't even go that far-

49:41 Speaker 1 Yeah, no

49:41 Speaker 3 ... 'cause the security. Yeah.

49:42 Speaker 1 Those days, you, I'll just soon tell you about my parents' wedding. The, the, everybody went on the plane and came off, you know. But, um, so the Rebbe and the Berel Unik went upstairs on the porch. He said, and the Rebbe waited until the plane, when the plane took off, so the Rebbe was staring. This is, uh, yeah. So the Rebbetsin went to Paris. She went for about three weeks.

50:05 Speaker 3 Oh.

50:05 Speaker 1 Sure. Sicha. There's actually postcards from Italy. She also went to Italy then.

50:10 Speaker 3 On the way back?

50:11 Speaker 1 No, no. When she went, when she was then in Paris, she was also in Italy.

50:15 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

50:16 Speaker 1 Where, what, when? I have no idea. I only saw the postcards.

50:18 Speaker 3 And she was by herself the whole time?

50:20 Speaker 1 I don't know.

50:20 Speaker 3 Okay.

50:22 Speaker 1 Don't know. Okay. So, uh, yeah, getting back to my parents. So then my father was in Bnei Brak. From Bnei Brak, that's where Delishki was sending all types of people. So 1948 or '49, a big group went to Eretz Yisrael, and that's what started Kfar Chabad. It took a while till it became Kfar Chabad. It was Safaria, and the next door ahead of him was a . And then finally they all settled in Kfar Chabad. This was still in-

50:50 Speaker 3 And, and some of the faculty in, in, uh, Paris and Bnei Brak went also, like, uh-

50:55 Speaker 1 Yeah

50:56 Speaker 3 ... Shlomkim.

50:56 Speaker 1 Shlomkim.

50:57 Speaker 3 So Nissen stayed, and then Shlomkim went-

50:59 Speaker 1 Kfar Chabad. He was a third or fourth cousin of my Zaidy. He also-- They all went to Kfar Chabad. They all went to Eretz Yisrael. A few, a few stayed back, and a few went. Yeah. So my father went to Eretz Yisrael, and he learned in over there in Tel Aviv. He learned by . He learned by, uh, yeah, it was, uh, different people. Now, right after , it became a of going to the Rebbe, the Bocher.

51:29 Speaker 3 How old is he in ?

51:30 Speaker 1 he turned, uh, . he was 20.

51:39 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. So it became a that everyone wants to be by the Rebbe.

51:42 Speaker 1 There was few in-

51:44 Speaker 3 Who was in charge of bringing that ? Where did this come from?

51:47 Speaker 1 I, I, it seemingly is gonna to his . Uh, even Shlomkim to a certain extent, he was talking about his to the Rebbe, you know.

51:57 Speaker 3 So they, they, they already raised with this.

51:58 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were... The, the, it was m- very interesting how the, how e- right away already, . By his two, he's, he had, for example, big people like . was under the top people in Eretz Yisrael. You know, he was a roommate with the Rebbe's Bocher. The Rebbe asked when the Rebbe came. He wasn't yet a Hasid. They sent him on a, on a, on a short trip somewhere. 'Cause the Rebbe wanted to give the Rebbe a report about the Rebbe. This is a story that he said on a many years later in Kfar Chabad. He came to speak about the Rebbe, so he told him this story. So he says, "The Rebbe was a , that there was no question." He says, "But I was more impressed with his ." He says, "Because we were..." because they were traveling. The food that they had was from . 100% . But he saw that the Rebbe was hesitating because the that they had for was a on the . So the Rebbe in a very, uh, you know, delicate way, didn't eat, but not because of the kashrus of the food, because there was a question on the in the . Which there's, this is, uh... So people like Zevin and they all, they wrote a Shabbos kashrus, a very, very strong Shabbos kashrus in . So Shabbos kashrus, you know, to become of the Rebbe. So, uh, that's how it happened. So a few of the Bocherim, Leibel Raskin managed to go

53:33 Speaker 1 already in I think he came, 1954. My father had a problem. My father was a Lubavitcher. There was a group which is still around today to a certain extent called Yad LaAchim, Pe'ilim, Against The Missionaries, and my father was one of these guys. And this-

53:52 Speaker 3 He was-

53:54 Speaker 1 Against the missionaries. Those days-

53:55 Speaker 3 He was-

53:55 Speaker 1 There were a lot of kids that came from Yemen.

53:57 Speaker 3 He was part of the organization?

53:59 Speaker 1 He was work- One of, one of the volunteers. There was, Shomberg Lipschitz was in charge, and, and, uh-

54:06 Speaker 3 It was Lubavitcher people that were involved. It was the-

54:07 Speaker 1 Yeah, it was big Lubavitcher people. Sure. And, uh, one day, see, the missionaries, they, they gave presents to the kids, uh, bicycles, and they gave, the, our guys gave candies.

54:19 Speaker 3 Hmm.

54:20 Speaker 1 yeah. So one time my father got really angry at one of these priests or whatever they were. My father gave him a zetz as they kid the boy. So the next day, the police came to Yeshiva. They put all the boys on a-

54:36 Speaker 3 Lineup

54:36 Speaker 1 ... a lineup. My father used to have a hat and, and glasses, uh, and no glasses. So he came to the lineup with a casquette and with glasses. The guy pointed him out in a second, and my father ended up in jail with another two Bocherim. They were in jail for a little while. And, uh, gradually when he came home, so he told his father, "I was also in jail," 'cause my Zaidy was in jail.

54:57 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

54:57 Speaker 1 He says, "Yeah, I've been in jail." He had to be comparing the jails of Israel to the jails in Russia. Anyways, but, uh, so he had a lot of problems in his passport. So it took, it took him over two years to be able to get papers to leave Israel. Even after he left, he's... What?

55:14 Speaker 3 I heard a few stories. He went to-

55:16 Speaker 1 He was in London for half a year.

55:17 Speaker 3 And then he go- Is this, is this a true story? He went to Ben-Gurion's house. Uh-

55:21 Speaker 1 Not to his house. He sent him a letter.

55:22 Speaker 3 Yeah.

55:23 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. There's a few letters. I have a few letters that he s- I got it from the archives of the government in Israel to Ben, to, to a few people that he had to write letters and explain-

55:31 Speaker 3 He was working very hard and then getting-

55:32 Speaker 1 He told me. A-a-and, and the truth is, there were some Bocherim, the reason why they didn't go to the Rebbe at that time was because they knew they have to waste a year to be able to push it, put together the paperwork. And they said, "That's not how you go to the Rebbe. You don't waste a year of yeshiva to..." That was the, uh-

55:50 Speaker 3 Debate. The de- the debate.

55:51 Speaker 1 That was sort of the... But, uh, yeah. So my father finally... Just very interessant. My father, the first letter that he got from the Rebbe- Okay? You gotta let him, Tuv Shin Yud Dalet, as a bocher, you know, 'cause he's asking the Rebbe about coming to America. Couple of months ago, I got a hold of a letter from the Rebbe to Reb Shlomo Chaim, who was a mashpia. The last line over there it says that, uh, metzuraf bazeh, "I'm attaching here a letter for a bocher, my father, and you'll give it to him and explain to-- you'll add whatever needs to be added." So that first letter my father got, he got it through Reb Shlomo Chaim. So Shlomo Chaim was his mashpia, I mean, to the extent that the Rebbe sent him the letter through Shlomo Chaim. So Shlomo Chaim was a big, uh, big effect on him. It was nice. Anyway, so then he came, finally came to the Rebbe, Shabbos Mevorchim Tammuz Tuv Shin Tes Vav. This was the same month that the Rebbe was sending the shluchim to Eretz Yisrael, the famous Yad Hamisha story.

57:00 Speaker 3 Tuv Shin Tes-

57:01 Speaker 1 Tes Vav.

57:02 Speaker 3 It's not Tes Zayin?

57:04 Speaker 1 I think it was Tes Vav.

57:06 Speaker 3 Okay.

57:06 Speaker 1 Well, we could check. Whenever that was.

57:08 Speaker 3 We'll check the records, okay.

57:09 Speaker 1 Okay? Basically, there was some Fedayees that came, and they made this pogrom in Chabad, where the five boys got killed. So the Rebbe in the summer, he sent twelve, uh, fifteen bocher to represent him. So this was in that, uh, that month. And, uh, so then he was in 770 for a good two years. Then he became a mashpia in Newark. Newark is, now it's Morristown, but before they were in Newark. He was a mashpia in Newark, and then Purim Tuv Shin Chai became a chosid. Badei Fabringen that day, they got a ransom for it.

57:45 Speaker 3 Before the Fabringen.

57:46 Speaker 1 What?

57:46 Speaker 3 Badei Fabringen.

57:47 Speaker 1 Badei Fabringen, the Rebbe gave him a piece of cake and to my zayde.

57:50 Speaker 3 And that was the-

57:51 Speaker 1 No, it was in the morning the Rebbe already, uh, sent out a tsitl, you know, that's come, Purim Tuv Shin Chai.

57:57 Speaker 3 So before you move on, I have a question about your father. Um, someone actually asked me recently, I hope he doesn't mind that I'm sharing it. I'm not gonna share with his name, but he, he's been listening to some of the interviews that I've been doing. And he di- he didn't go to Temchetmim, this, this fellow. So he asked me, he keeps on hearing about the, everyone talks about Reb Gershon Mendel Grell like so much halacha. It's like, uh, what is it? What is it? That, that was the question that he asked me.

58:32 Speaker 1 To m- in one sentence, my father was a person who lived Rebbe twenty-four seven, three sixty-five. Kipshute. No, no gimmicks, no garnished. Straight. Rebbe, and that's it. The fact that he was in Italy, there's Italy, there's my father. He's there because the Rebbe sent him, and it-- There was nothing that he did before he thought, "What would the Rebbe want me to do in this case?" And he was always right. I'll tell you a, a story, bekitzer. The first few years, my father got letters from the Rebbe galore every two weeks. Every two weeks, he got a letter.

59:27 Speaker 3 These were responses.

59:28 Speaker 1 Responses to questions to this, to that, or from Rabbi Chadikov, which all the letters from Rabbi Chadikov was-

59:33 Speaker 3 So your father did write.

59:34 Speaker 1 My father wrote. Yeah, sure. My father wrote.

59:36 Speaker 3 See, you said before he didn't speak, but he did write.

59:38 Speaker 1 Yeah. Wri-writing? Yes. He always write. Yeah, wrote. The Rebbe always wanted... Not only that, even if he did, imagine it was one Tishrei. The day after Simchas Torah, the Rebbe sent a letter. "Tzvi, three weeks, I didn't get any..." Tishrei. The Rebbe has plenty of what to do with Tishrei, yeah. Three, three, underlined three times. That, that, that doesn't make sense. You know, my father tried to write to the Rebbe because the Rebbe portion kept on always, uh, "I have a whole bunch of letters," but the Rebbe's complaining why there's no letters. So I don't know if it was Tuv Shin Chaf Ches or Tuv Shin Chaf Tes, about ten years into the shlichus. The Rebbe in Yichidus told him, when he used to come every year for Chaf Av, it's another parshah. And the Rebbe told him, "Biz ven vilder divdarfun arum neme vi a kind af di hent." "Till when we'll have to carry you around like a child in the arms." And, uh, my brother says the Rebbe went like this. And the Rebbe said, "Tracht in Chabad vestu mechaven zein tsu mein kavone." "Think in Chabad, and you'll be mechaven to my, to my-

1:00:43 Speaker 3 Intent

1:00:43 Speaker 1 ... my intentions." I, again, not because it's my father. Any time that we did something, and I remember many times there was a question to do it like this or do it like that, and he would say, "I think maybe it should be done like that." He was always right, always. There were times that there was no time to ask the Rebbe. There were certain big things in Italy, and I remember my father had to make decisions. He was always right, always. But it-- And I, I remember sometimes he had to go to a big meeting, you know, with big peop- government people or even in the community. He would sit up a whole night with the onion papers, the Amaleh kesichas, in other word, an onion paper. A whole night. Go to shul, and from there go to the Sifre. He was in the Sicha. That's how he went. And-

1:01:35 Speaker 3 That's how he prepared.

1:01:36 Speaker 1 That's how he prepa-- And he was always successful, always. No matter who he met. If he-- In, in his later years, finally, you know, we got to be with Europe and with the, uh, head of the European Unions. My father used to go to these meetings, and everybody was sitting around the table, you know, and everybody know my father. They were all odd. My father once in a while would, you know, "Ein dremen." Then he would turn around to Mackenzie Gang, you know, "Do we, do we still have to sit here?" You know? The world didn't exist to him. It was only a Rebbe, and that's it. You know, the rest is, uh-

1:02:05 Speaker 3 Kind of

1:02:05 Speaker 1 ... we have.

1:02:06 Speaker 3 You know, we're always looking, myself included, for ways to stay and be connected to the Rebbe. And not just any way, but something tangible. The way to do it, especially around Chaf Mishvat, is Keren Hachamesh. A little bit of the background. Keren Hachamesh, which is the Rosh Teves, Harbonis Chaim Mushka, is a fund that was opened by the Rebbe immediately after the passing of the Rebbetsin on Chaf Mishvat Tashman Ches during the Shiva. In fact, it's the only corporation that the Rebbe himself opened. And the idea is really for communal needs that relate to women. Women's education, women that are struggling financially, and the general welfare of women and girls. And here's the interesting part. The Rebbe gave instructions how, how to give. The Rebbe said to give in increments of four hundred and seventy, which is the Gematria of the Rebbetsin's name. Whether it's four dollars and seventy cents, forty-seven dollars, four hundred and seventy or four thousand and seven hundred. Giving in these increments is how the Rebbe directed us to support this fund and honor the Rebbetsin. This past year, Keren Hachamesh gave out over one million dollars to Hachnas Hakala, to women and girls programs, and to Makvais. To me, when we do this, we're not just donating. We're fulfilling a specific request the Rebbe made. We are connecting ourselves to the Rebbe and the Rebbetsin. I will be donating to Keren Hachamesh this Chaf Mishvat, and you can too at kerenhachamesh.org. That's K-E-R-E-N-H-A-C-H-O-M-E-S-H.org. Okay, so back to when he's a

1:03:52 Speaker 3 bachar. I mean, you, you, you got an engagement already. So first of all, there's two things. Number one, uh, mixing two things. Maybe I shouldn't, but first of all, I mean, there's so much kiruvim that your father received from the Rebbe, so I'm interested to know if that was, uh, like when he became a shliach, that was before. But the second part is that in general, the connection that the Rebbe had with the bacharim and the yods was like a, a very special, deep, and open... I mean, I mean, there's many bacharim or a lot of the bacharim that had that, that, uh, connection to the Rebbe. So, uh, yeah, that, that's kind of a... I don't know if that's my question or that's-- I'm segwaying in, into that discussion with you.

1:04:39 Speaker 1 I don't know if my father as a bachar had more kiruvim than others. The Rebbe definitely saw in this guy emeskeit, you know, chassidishkeit. That to him, the Rebbe is everything. That for sure. And I guess that the putting that together with the fact that they were the first ones to go overseas, there's another very important element here to realize. My father went on a type of shlichas that nobody else did in the next sixty years. My father was sent as a rav of a community. In other words, the Rebbe wasn't sending someone to open up a Beis Chabad and expand and conquer the world. The Rebbe sent him as a rav of a shul. You're taking a bachar in seven seventy. Was learned some of nine Beis from the Kopirta. And you're taking him, and you're sending him to become a rav for Balabatim , okay? I don't know if anybody could understand the oxymoron here, okay? And even in the first year, the Rebbe saw hatzlacha. That... So first of all, the Rebbe should do something like that that was very out of the ordinary, take a bachar and send him. Now, the, the Rebbe did tell my father to make sure to get the yodi yodin, yodin yodin, et cetera, you know.

1:06:05 Speaker 3 Is this for the shlichas or before?

1:06:07 Speaker 1 It, it was both.

1:06:08 Speaker 3 It's after his chasuna.

1:06:09 Speaker 1 Both. Yeah. Even before the chasuna, after the chasuna. But, uh, there was a rav in, in Newark. His name was Rav Spitz. He was a tomim actually from before.

1:06:19 Speaker 3 From, from-

1:06:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, from Advotsk, I think he was.

1:06:22 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:06:22 Speaker 1 Yeah. He's, he's in the separate name, Izabi. But his daughter actually worked in Crown Heights for a while. And, uh, she told me when she was a little girl that her father came from Newark to my parents' chuppah with her father, because my father was very close to him in Newark, Nachan Yeshiva. And, um, and the Rebbe sent him to be a rav in a place, and from that to build the moedess, and that's what happened, Taki. So the whole shlichas was a different type of shlichas. It's not the pshat the Rebbe sent, you know, to the city. Go and, go and start opening up a school, and doesn't yet know. Went to an established community, put him into as a rav. Now, before that, uh, there's a whole story how that happened. But, uh, I think that that's the... And the main thing is my father, no matter how many years he was in Italy, he always davened bareches. He always continued learning my Morim Chassid-- And he, he learned a lot of Nigle too, of course. No question. He had a lot of shailas that he used to get from, uh... And you would never think that he left seven seventy. You would never think that he left seven seventy. In Tav Shir Chaf Alef came Rebbe Yechiel Kal Sarna, Rosh Yeshiva of Lomza. He walked into our house, and he saw the Rebbe's picture, and he said, "Ah, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Shmechel, Eretz Chanayim, you know him in Italia." You know, he

1:07:58 Speaker 1 already... Rav Kahnman from the Ponovitch Rosh Yeshiva, they came to our... The org- all the chief rabbis of Israel, from Rav Nissim, Tav Shir Chaf Zayin, they... All the chief rabbis of Israel were in our house. All of them. Not, not... From Rav Nissim, Rav Untermann, all of them. They were personal friends of my father, and my father was this guy who learned some above and I'm base. That was his-

1:08:22 Speaker 3 And that's how he, um-

1:08:24 Speaker 1 But they saw that he lives Rebbe. You know, the, the Ramam says, uh, wh-why do people fear a Malek? In the Velt, they, they fear because of his whip, not because of him.

1:08:34 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:08:34 Speaker 1 Mashenka Malek Visrol because Ano love Elo Shemalekov. If Balt, the Reb, the Reb, the, the Malek is bottled to the Ebster, automatically the people are gonna be bottled to him. It's like a mime upon him. I think that when they saw his bottle to the Rebbe, I think that's what the, what got them.

1:08:53 Speaker 3 Okay. Fine. So I have a few questions about, um, the, the perspective that you gave, uh, I think you encapsulated some of it. Um, I just wanna go back to the story a little bit. He got... So he got engaged to your mother, and I believe that the Rebbe-

1:09:16 Speaker 1 Rebbe was very much involved in that, uh,

1:09:18 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:09:18 Speaker 1 Now, the, the one with the real Shatkin was Rabbi Jacobson, Rabbi Saul Jacobson. But the Rebbe, for example, uh, uh, the Rebbe's, uh, the Rebbe sent my father to Pittsburgh, Kavi Yochal, to Hazarin de Fabregen. But really, it was so my father could get to see more, uh, who the family is.

1:09:39 Speaker 3 'Cause your mother was living in Pittsburgh.

1:09:39 Speaker 1 My mother was in Pittsburgh. She was a teaching for Mizedek. Yeah. And Rabbi Hardikov gave him, I think $75 or $100, the Emult, to buy a present for my mother.

1:09:49 Speaker 3 And they weren't engaged?

1:09:49 Speaker 1 They weren't engaged yet. And, uh, it's Yaba Lerman then lived in Pittsburgh, and he went with my father to-

1:09:57 Speaker 3 So your mother is American-

1:10:00 Speaker 1 Like the fla- As American as the flag.

1:10:02 Speaker 3 She's born in America? Uh-

1:10:03 Speaker 1 My mother, mother was born in Chicago.

1:10:04 Speaker 3 Okay. So she's born-

1:10:05 Speaker 1 By the way, in the Sikher, when the Rebbe says, "American, uh, uh, Russischer Ingel,"

1:10:09 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:10:09 Speaker 1 "Mitar Americaner Maydel," the Rebbe says, "Dachtsa Giboren Gvar in America."

1:10:13 Speaker 3 Right.

1:10:13 Speaker 1 Because she was born before Tarshin.

1:10:15 Speaker 3 Right.

1:10:15 Speaker 1 She was born in Tzadok Test. So.

1:10:17 Speaker 3 So an American girl-

1:10:18 Speaker 1 American girl

1:10:19 Speaker 3 ... with a Russian Bacher.

1:10:22 Speaker 1 It, it-- And it was pretty interesting. My aunt, uh, Darren, who was, uh, well, she was very perturbed by the Shila.

1:10:31 Speaker 3 But the Rebbe put, was pushing it.

1:10:32 Speaker 1 The Rebbe pushed it, yeah.

1:10:35 Speaker 3 So they got married in-

1:10:37 Speaker 1 Dalet Tamuz.

1:10:37 Speaker 3 So what was... Okay.

1:10:39 Speaker 1 They became Hasid Kala Purim. Purim Tav Shikay. The Tanoim, those days was Tanoim, wasn't Var Tel Chaim, it was Tanoim. The Tanoim was Beis Nissan in Pittsburgh, and the Hasid was Dalet Tamuz Tav Shikay. If you want, we'll talk about that too, about-

1:10:54 Speaker 3 It was in New York.

1:10:56 Speaker 1 Oh.

1:10:56 Speaker 3 The Rebbe was in Sandek Kaddush, right?

1:10:57 Speaker 1 What happened was the Rebbe was beside the... My uncle Zalman, Zalman Posner, his Hasid was in New York, Kislav Tav Shin Yud, the time of the Fiidi Rebbe. His Kala was from New York, Rabbi Kazinowski's daughter. And they all went into Yehudis, by the way, then. That's how, when my mother was in Yehudis by the Fiidi Rebbe. She remembers very well the Yehudis. The next year, Tav Shin Yud Dalet, my uncle Label got married in New York, and the Rebbe was Mosad HaKaddish. So the Rebbe was married by two weddings of the family. Came to my parents' wedding was at Tav Shikay eight years later. Now, my mother and father wanted a wedding in New York so the Rebbe could be Mosad HaKaddish, 'cause Rebbe was Mosad HaKaddish until Tav Shikay, until 1960.

1:11:41 Speaker 3 By then, Rebbe was only for sh- if you're going to Shlichas, right?

1:11:44 Speaker 1 Yeah, it was a different Tanoim. But there was no question that they were, that most of the Bachim then, they were gonna go on Shlichas. And my grandfather, as much as he wanted the Hasid to be in New York 'cause the Rebbe was Mosad HaKaddish, the problem was that he lived, was in Pittsburgh. The Yeshiva he has is in Pittsburgh. The donors that he has are in Pittsburgh. I mean, Tamal come to Hasid, and for the daughter, he goes to New York, something's get past. So they didn't know what to do. He also wants the wedding in New York, but as far Tam Shlichas over there, you know, how do you do it? So they went to Yehudis, and they told the Rebbe the problem. So the Rebbe said, "Machna Pshare." We're gonna make a compromise. We're gonna make the Chuppah here and the wedding in Pittsburgh. And the Rebbe said, "We're gonna make the Chuppah earlier in the day." Normally, the Chuppahs were five, six o'clock. You know, by the way, the, a little bit of the history of the Chuppahs is 770. The Rebbe used to go to the hall. The first three, four years, the Rebbe went to the hall of the weddings. At one point, the Rebbe said, "Ad Kan." It's probably too much time, and he can't. The first Hasid after that was Rabbi Raskin. So Rabbi Raskin, he said he's not getting married if the Rebbe's not, um... So he asked the Rebbe, "If he makes the Chuppahs 770,

1:12:55 Speaker 1 would that be okay?" And the Rebbe said, "Sure." They're all the Chuppahs are in 770.

1:12:59 Speaker 3 And that's why you had the inn.

1:13:00 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. But he's the one that actually got it, and so the Rebbe said what he's gonna do is they're gonna change the schedule, make the Chuppah earlier in the day, like one thirty or two o'clock. And then after the Chuppah, they'll go to the airport, take a plane, and go to Pittsburgh. And the meal is go- the Masuda is going to be over there. And the Rebbe s- I think the Rebbe said that anyways, most people don't come to the Chuppah anyways. Most people come later to the dinner. So nobody's gonna know the difference anyways, until time, until time to say that. A, a cute, uh, episode about that. I had a cousin from Manhattan, my bubby's cousin's son, whatever. He was my mother's age. So he came to this, to the Chuppah. Those days, the system was that you could only take two pi- the photographer was only allowed to take two pictures of the Rebbe by the Chuppah. Till 1954, you have a lot of pictures. Around 1954, I think it was, the Rebbe called the photographer. He was my uncle's brother-in-law, by the way. My uncle Label and Trainer, the photographer-

1:14:02 Speaker 3 Trainer

1:14:03 Speaker 1 ... married two sisters.

1:14:04 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:14:04 Speaker 1 So my uncle Label's wife and Trainer's wife are sisters.

1:14:07 Speaker 3 Trainer Studios.

1:14:08 Speaker 1 Trainer Studio. So, so the, the Rebbe told Trainer, "Of the Chuppah, you can take as many pictures as you like. Of me, only two." So there's only two. You come to my parents' wedding, you see a spread of eight, 10 beautiful colored pictures. They had body of black and white, and here it's all colors. And all these pictures, how did it happen all of a sudden? Because this cousin of ours, he came with his camera. He was a rich kid. He had a camera that makes, then in 1958, colored slides.

1:14:39 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:14:39 Speaker 1 Stazafur. Yenetsayten. And that'll give club pictures. You know, he didn't know from nothing. So that's how we have all these beautiful pictures. As a matter of fact, one of the pictures, you see a whole bunch of kids with slappers and ties. Mejia Katlarsky, Chaim David Lane, all these guys, and they're all over there. So I asked him once, "What are you guys doing over there by the Chuppah and with ties?" The what happened was, this was Dalet Tamuz, Sunday. The, in Bedford and Dean in the Yeshiva, they had, um, graduation that day. Meet them all, the boys heard the Rebbe's Mosad HaKaddish, so they all ran away from the graduation.

1:15:14 Speaker 3 Oh, so they went-

1:15:14 Speaker 1 And they came to chuppas. And after, they're all sitting, they were-

1:15:16 Speaker 3 The graduation, huh? Yeah.

1:15:18 Speaker 1 This is, um-

1:15:19 Speaker 3 So they, that's, and that's like what happened? They went to Pittsburgh?

1:15:21 Speaker 1 They went... Oh, but this, I'll just tell you something-

1:15:23 Speaker 3 'Cause I, I'm getting confused with the, your aunt's chasuna.

1:15:25 Speaker 1 That's another story.

1:15:26 Speaker 3 Yeah, okay.

1:15:27 Speaker 1 That's a separate story. So, so my, this cousin of mine told me that they actually went to the airport. He drove the car. He had a car, and he drove to the airport, and he also went along with them to Pittsburgh, and a lot of bochurim went. Bochurim couldn't afford to go to Pittsburgh. So they all went at least to the airport, and they all went on the plane like we were talking before, you know. You go on the plane, and we sing L'Chaim, gezungen, getanzt. Finally, they had to leave, so the pilot goes on the microphone, and he says, uh, "Okay, whoever is not traveling, please, uh, go down so we could go." And the bochurim are saying, "L'Chaim. Vestachs. Leb diike freilech." Anyways, finally, all the bochurim go off, and they started dancing by the stairs over there. The plane took off, and they saw out the window, the bochurim dancing. They got to Pittsburgh. As they landed, the pilot goes on the pl- on the microphone, and he says, "It's impossible. It's impossible." People had no clue what happened. And all of a sudden, he says, "All the people sitting on the left side of the plane, look outside." They look outside, and what do they see? Bochurim dancing. Everybody's going crazy. "Was tut zar dem?" Anyways, they finally stop. They, they bring the stairs, and the bochurim are there dancing. Now, normally, the pilot is the last one that goes off the plane. Every time you go off the plane, you

1:16:44 Speaker 1 see the pilot is still sitting there, right? Not because he loves the place. I think it's the law that he has to be the last one off the plane. So the, here, the pilot was the first one to go off the plane. The pilot runs down, and he says, "How did you guys do it? How did you guys do it?" The guys are looking at him, say, "Veis nisht what, what, what he wants." Finally, he told him, "You were just now dancing over there in New York and..." They understood it was These were bochurim that the day before, they rented a car. They went to Pittsburgh to machen, to help by the, machen leb dik by the chassan. So they came the day before. It's much cheaper. Rent a car, six guys, you know. And they figured, if the chassan will come to the airport, we may as well meet them at the airport.

1:17:26 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:17:26 Speaker 1 So the, so the pilot said a line, unbelievable line. He said, "Uh, you guys, you all look alike, and you sing the same tune." That was, uh, another-

1:17:37 Speaker 3 Quoted him a quote

1:17:38 Speaker 1 ... interesting thing that happened, though, by this chassan is the day before was Shabbos. The, the chassan was a Sunday, Dalet Tammuz. The day before was Gimel Tammuz, Taf Shin Chai. This was the first time that Gimel Tammuz fell out on a Shabbos since Yichvat. There were a lot of habrengas that if it was the middle of the week, the Rebbe did not do. The Rebbe would do only the big ones. You have Kislev, Yichvat, Purim. But like a Tu B'Shvat or a Zion, you know, all these other days, the Rebbe would habreng only if it fell out on a Shabbos. This Gimel Tammuz was on Shabbos, but something very interesting happened. There were three chassanim that Shabbos. My father, Shmuel David Gurkov, later lived in New Jersey, and, um, Shmuel Heber from St. Louis. Three chassanim in one Shabbos in Lubavitch those days. Two happened, uh, Rebbe Yael and Leib Groner, they were happened. Whatever, there were over three, I think this was the first time in Lubavitch. So the three fathers, my zayde, Rav Sholom Posner, Yankel Gurkov, and, uh, Leiber Heber, the three fathers. The, this was all upstairs in the small zal, you know. So they went over to the Rebbe after davening. They asked the Rebbe if the Rebbe would habreng the kovod, the three chassanim. So the Rebbe said, "Vos heist? S'iz doch Gimel Tammuz. Zi kumen habrengen." It's Gimel Tammuz. Of course, we're gonna habreng. And that's this famous sicha which is printed in the back of Halich

1:19:01 Speaker 1 Dalet in Likutei Sichos, where the Rebbe says that l'chayim, you have Gimel Tammuz, and you have Yivveyz Tammuz. Freidik, you have Gimel of Yivveyz Tammuz. But Gimel Tammuz will switch from death to life. Switch of death to life is much more than going out of jail.

1:19:15 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:19:15 Speaker 1 So, so the Rebbe explains the difference between the personal things of the Rebbe or the general things. A Rebbe to the, when it comes out to the Chassidim, that's how the Rebbe is. But the fact that it was changed from death to life, that is a personal thing of the Rebbe. So that's a freidik Rebbe, mehareh a big thing of Yivveyz Tammuz. Aber Chassidim, they have to take Gimel Tammuz-

1:19:33 Speaker 3 Gimel Tammuz

1:19:34 Speaker 1 ... and, uh, Lach di gezeiyn Gimel Tammuz. That was all that Shabbos of that habrengan. So that's the story of the wedding. After the wedding-

1:19:43 Speaker 3 And by your aunt, the same thing happened.

1:19:45 Speaker 1 The, totally different. The, the same thing, that's at the, the chuppah here and the wedding there-

1:19:49 Speaker 3 But it-

1:19:49 Speaker 1 ... but for totally different reason.

1:19:50 Speaker 3 But that wasn't 'cause it was already in the family?

1:19:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll tell you if you want. I'll tell you the story.

1:19:53 Speaker 3 The kids, uh-

1:19:54 Speaker 1 To make a long story short-

1:19:55 Speaker 3 It's just, uh-

1:19:55 Speaker 1 My aunt, Sarivka Sasonke, zal zayn gezunt, she-- my mother opened up a kindergarten in Italy. So she was there for Taf Shin Kaf Alef, 1961. My fiance-

1:20:05 Speaker 3 She worked by your-

1:20:06 Speaker 1 My mother for a year as a, she was a teenager.

1:20:08 Speaker 3 I just saw a letter from, from the Rebbe to her-

1:20:11 Speaker 1 Sure

1:20:11 Speaker 3 ... about that.

1:20:12 Speaker 1 Yeah. The Rebbe sent a few letters. Beautiful long letters in English.

1:20:16 Speaker 3 She w- she was ha- running to the Rebbe about different hardships she was having.

1:20:18 Speaker 1 Sure. Zecher, zecher. And-

1:20:20 Speaker 3 The Rebbe wrote them all in English.

1:20:22 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:20:22 Speaker 3 Your mother also, right?

1:20:23 Speaker 1 Sometimes. Sometimes English, sometimes Yiddish, sometimes Hebrew.

1:20:25 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:20:25 Speaker 1 The, I'm, I'm not sure exactly what to say there was, why these like this, these like that. Chayshes. But I have in all three languages. So Sarivka was there for a year. After the year was finished, Kaf Alef in the summer, she went to Israel from Italy. She went to Israel. She became a kallah. She met him twice or three times, not even and she became a kallah to Averamo Sasonkin. She went back to New York. After she went back to New York, comes Elul, and my mother wrote to the Rebbe that she doesn't have a teacher for next year. She doesn't know what to do. I'm not sure exactly the details how it happened, but Sara Rivke s- wrote to the Rebbe, I think the Rebbe said, "If it's better some resembling of Tov L'vav." In other words, if she agrees to that, she should go back. And Sara Rivke went to Italy for a year as a kala, and the date of the wedding was for next Tammuz. Hanukkah that year when she was in Italy, the Tzipel, that's the family in Italy, that because of them my father ended up in-- my parents ended up in Italy. They, they're the ones running the shoulder with the... So Mr. Tzipel offered to give her a ticket to go to Eretz Yisrael so she could see her chassan and kallah first. She hardly remember what it looked like.

1:21:47 Speaker 3 He wasn't in New York?

1:21:49 Speaker 1 No, no, he was in Eretz Yisrael. He was in Eretz Yisrael. And, um, and that's what the Rebbe sent to her, the letter that the chassan and kallah in the middle of the year, they shouldn't, uh, middle between the engagement and the wedding, they should see each other. So that's not a good idea. That was to her, that was to Sara Rivke.

1:22:08 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:22:08 Speaker 1 So she didn't go. About a month before the wedding, my grandparents went to Yeadiz, and the Rebbe asked them, "What are the plans for the wedding?" So they said, "We're planning to make a wedding in Pittsburgh." This was two years after the Rebbe had stopped him.

1:22:21 Speaker 3 Right. The Rebbe didn't do it anymore.

1:22:23 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe on his own said that he had an idea that he would like to be Mesader Kidushin for Sara Rivke. Because she went to Italy for a year, she would-- he would like to Mesader Kidushin. But the Rebbe made two Tanaim, two conditions. Condition number one is that they have to-- that until the chuppah, no one should know about it. And number two, that they should, uh, put together a bezdin, that the bezdin should pasken, that it should not be Ayan Harei. Because the Rebbe stopped him Mesader Kidushin, and all of a sudden, the Rebbe's making an exception.

1:22:57 Speaker 3 So it's Ayan Harei?

1:22:58 Speaker 1 As long as I can get people in order to, to Ayan Harei.

1:23:02 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:23:03 Speaker 1 And I also know who the bezdin was. The bezdin was my uncle Darren, Black Turski, and Rabbi Chin. There was a rabbi in McKeesport in, uh... And the Rebbe said, "Nu," and, uh, the fact of making the chuppah here and the wedding there, you're very well experienced, so, um, because my parents-

1:23:21 Speaker 3 It was happening. Okay.

1:23:22 Speaker 1 That's how it, uh-

1:23:23 Speaker 3 Okay. So after the chassanah, your parents lived-

1:23:28 Speaker 1 Crown Heights.

1:23:29 Speaker 3 Crown Heights. And then-

1:23:30 Speaker 1 But, but for that summer, my father was a mashpia or something in Gan Yisroel for the summer, while he was a mashpia in camp. So he used to come once in a while to Crown Heights, you know, to spend the day in Seven seventy once in a while. And one time he was walking in the hallway, and Rabbi Kadikov saw him, and Rabbi Kadikov told him that, uh, you and your wife keep on writing to the Rebbe that you wanna go on shlichus. By the way, the Rebbe started Ufaratzta, the whole Ufaratzta, Yud Beis Tammuz That's a week and a half after my parents' wedding. Yeah. That's when the Rebbe started Ufaratzta, Yud Beis Tammuz. Then the afterwards, all after Yud Beis Tammuz it started. So he told him, "You, you keep on writing to the Rebbe you wanna go on shlichus. People like you cannot be sent on shlichus." So my father said, "For what? Like, what did I do wrong?" So he says, "No, no, you didn't do anything wrong." My father at that time was a mashpia in Newark, in the yeshiva.

1:24:30 Speaker 3 So I thought there was a story that when your father was supposed to become mashpia, he didn't want it because he's not gonna be able to go on shlichus. Is that-- Is there any truth to that?

1:24:40 Speaker 1 No. Nnno.

1:24:40 Speaker 3 Okay. It's not true.

1:24:41 Speaker 1 He, he wrote to the Rebbe before he went on-- before this whole thing. No. After the Rebbe said that he's gonna go on shlichus, so he wrote to the Rebbe that he was hope-- something about that. No.

1:24:56 Speaker 3 But I'm not, I'm not following the story because-

1:24:58 Speaker 1 No, but what, when he went to Newark, what a- what he wrote to the Rebbe was that he doesn't wanna go because he doesn't want to leave Temimat Mimim. He, he doesn't wanna get a job. And the Rebbe said, "No, no, this is still considered Temimat Mimim," or something like that. No. The- those days, there, there was no, there was no talk of shlichus when he was a bachur. No.

1:25:21 Speaker 3 Oh, he-- When he was a bachur, he was in Newark?

1:25:22 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:25:23 Speaker 3 Oh, okay. Okay. I didn't understand that. Okay.

1:25:24 Speaker 1 Yeah. As a bachur, he went to Newark. The bachurim then were Shlome Koni, Avraham Lipsker-

1:25:28 Speaker 3 Got it. Okay

1:25:29 Speaker 1 ... Ellen Teitelbaum. These were-

1:25:31 Speaker 3 So he, um, so he was in New York, and so his af-- whatever. The, uh, Kadikov tells him that you're in Newark, right?

1:25:39 Speaker 1 Right. You're in Newark. The... And the Rebbe doesn't take people from one mosha to another mosha.

1:25:43 Speaker 3 Right.

1:25:43 Speaker 1 So my father told Rabbi Kadikov, "Oh, that could be taken care of." The person in charge of the yeshivas then was the Rashag, the Rebbe's brother-in-law, Shmuel Gurari. His office was on the third floor of Seven seventy. I don't-- You never saw this, but when you walked into Seven seventy, you know there's the elevator.

1:25:59 Speaker 3 There's a sign.

1:25:59 Speaker 1 There was a sign, and the sign said over there, "The office from the United Lubavitch Yeshiva is up on the third floor. Bitte nehmen them elevator." I remember the first time I came to the Rebbe and I saw the word elevator. I went, "I don't know what, what is that?" That is not Yiddish. Why, why, what is that, elevator? Yeah. Anyways, so my father went upstairs to the Rashag, and he told him he got married, and he needs a raise. So Rashag asked him, "How much do you need?" Then he used to get, I think, seventy or eighty dollars a month. That's what I say. He says, "I need two thousand dollars a month." So the Rashag says, "Two thou-- Are you, are you out of your mind? I can't give you two thousand dollars." My father says, "This is what I need. Take it or leave it." "I can't give you two thousand dollars." I said, "Are you firing me?" My father said, "Are you firing me?" He said, "I have no choice. What, what, what do you want me to do?" So my father said, "Could you do me a favor? Just give me a little settle that I'm fired. I'll take care of the yeshiva later and everything. I just need a settle that I'm fired." And the Rashag gave him a settle that he's fired. My father went downstairs, and he brought it to Rabbi Kadikov. In other words, within ten minutes, he took care of the issue. Rabbi Kadikov, I

1:27:04 Speaker 1 don't know if you... Those who remember Rabbi Kadikov, he was as-- He was smart- Like anything, unbelievable. He was unbelievably clever. Push it up, clever person. But he never showed any emotions or any, you know. So father gave him the settle. "Okay, thank you." You know, nothing. And then about two, three weeks later, he meets my father in the hallway, and he asked him, "Would you be willing to go to Europe?" My father said, "Sure." So Rabbi Kadikov, "Hey, one minute. You have to call your wife first." My wife, my mother then was in Pittsburgh. She went there for two weeks, so my father stayed in 770. My mother went there. So, uh, my father said, "Ze is masking, don't worry," 'cause my mother wanted to go more than my father. And, uh, and then my father told Rabbi Kadikov which country. So Rabbi Kadikov says, "L'main hav keminah?" What difference does it make? So my father says, "No, no, no, doesn't make any difference. I'll go anywhere." But because he had a passport with full of problems, like I said before, so he says, "The earlier I know where I'm going, I'm gonna start working on a visa. It possibly could take a few months until, uh..." So Rabbi Kadikov goes, "La mashal, Italia." You know, like, eh, for example, Italia.

1:28:26 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:28:28 Speaker 1 And, uh, and the rest is history, and that's why Takem, my father, my parents had to go New York, Paris, Milan because, you know, if Gordetsky worked out a visa for them from Paris to Milan, from France to, uh... It was a whole story, but she took about, this was Elul, close to Rosh Hashanah, and they went to Kislev.

1:28:52 Speaker 3 And there's a whole story when they left.

1:28:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, there's a whole and, uh-

1:28:57 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:28:57 Speaker 1 ... sure. First of all, Mandy Groner, Mandtye Rechaver, is, got from his father's diary. Levi Groner describes the whole Tetzleim Shalom. It was because they left on a Tuesday. There was a big Tetzleim Shalom on Shabbos and a big one on Sunday night. you know. But, um, they went to Yechidas, not the day they left, before. And the Rebbe asked him, "." My parents were, like, shocked. Were, kept on writing how happy they are that they're going as Yechidas, and Rebbe's asking, "Are you gonna do it ?" And the Rebbe gave him a whole bunch of Tanyas. The Rebbe said, "Sometimes you go on a plane, somebody may need a Tanya." met somebody on the plane, and he, he came to my father. My father went on around the plane, started looking for Jews. He didn't find anybody. Then about two hours into the flight, the guy comes, he says to my father, "." Seemingly, this guy was in Yechidas.

1:29:59 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:29:59 Speaker 1 He was in Yechidas before. The Rebbe told him maybe they should learn Tanya, and now he's on the plane, he had no Tanya. So, but, um, yeah, and then they, uh, the, the Rebbe came from his house, and he's got a whole Tuma 770, you know, 'cause my parents were about to leave. And the Rebbe asked Rabbi Groner what's going on, so he told him. So the Rebbe came out, and he waited till they went to the taxi, until they left. And, uh-

1:30:26 Speaker 3 And then your father, right in the beginning, he didn't come back to the Rebbe.

1:30:30 Speaker 1 Oh. What happened was like this. When he landed in Italy, was Yut Tes Kislev. They left Yud Beis Kislev. They went to Paris, where they were for Shabbos, and then Monday, Yut Tes Kislev, they got to Italy. Monday, Tuesday. And, and the Rebbe by the Fabrang and that Fabrang, uh, so they sent a telegram, uh, uh, sent a telegram to the Rebbe. He got Nule Milano Beshalom, and the Rebbe by the Fabrang, and the Rebbe said that somebody should say l'chaim for my father because as it's the Milano Fabrang Ti Tes Kislev. That was that first, uh, day they were there. And, um, what did you, what did you ask?

1:31:07 Speaker 3 He didn't come back to the Rebbe-

1:31:08 Speaker 1 Oh

1:31:09 Speaker 3 ... in the beginning.

1:31:09 Speaker 1 So he came the first Shabbos of Arkham, Metamol. It's the first Shabbos of Arkham that he's missing.

1:31:14 Speaker 3 First Fabrang, yeah.

1:31:15 Speaker 1 He went bananas for Shtezda. So he told my mother, "I'm gonna go every Shabbos of Arkham to the Rebbe, you'll see." It's like saying today, "I'm gonna go every day to the moon." Today, you, you, you can't do that. My father said, "." Just to give you a little taste of that, came Purim, my father decided he wants to go to New York. He couldn't make it. Purim came Pesach, and my father decided Adkan. He's going for the last days of Pesach to New York, and he actually got one of the Tipa brothers. He had the . He got him a ticket, and my father was gonna come for the last days, Chol HaMoed. Seemingly, my father wrote to the Rebbe-

1:31:57 Speaker 3 This is the first year of-

1:31:58 Speaker 1 First year, to Italy. People didn't travel those days to, uh, overseas like this. They didn't. He didn't have a penny to his name. And s- he wrote to the Rebbe that he's planning to come for the last days. You know, it's all taken care of. And it's second or third day of Chol HaMoed, and he's downstairs. He's the happiest man on earth. He has his ticket. He's waiting for a taxi. As he's waiting for a taxi to come pick him up to go take him to the airport, the mailman comes. The mailman comes. We lived in an apartment building, and the mailman puts letters in the boxes, and he sees that he put someone in my father's. My father said, "Let me see what the mail is. I'm waiting for a taxi anyways." It was a letter from the Rebbe. Was haste to leave. the Moshiach. The whole thing. So that was... Anyways, bottom line is, no such thing, and my father stayed.

1:32:51 Speaker 3 The Rebbe got a report that he's leaving.

1:32:53 Speaker 1 No, my fa- I think my father wrote-

1:32:54 Speaker 3 Oh, he wrote to the Rebbe.

1:32:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, because the Rebbe writes, "."

1:32:56 Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

1:32:57 Speaker 1 No, my father wasn't gonna come to the Rebbe without permission.

1:32:59 Speaker 3 So he wrote to the Rebbe.

1:33:00 Speaker 1 So he wrote to the Rebbe, and that letter came as he's waiting for the taxi. That's why people see this letter in Yigris. It doesn't say to who, to what. You don't see the Raqkat of the letter. If you know that it's to my father, and he got it as he's waiting for the taxi, this is nisht normal, and the Rebbe sent it a week before. You know, because those days you send a letter from to Mila- New York to Italy

1:33:19 Speaker 3 Were there official rules then about when you're allowed to come to the Rebbe?

1:33:22 Speaker 1 Not yet. It, it started like the following year because that's the next year more

1:35:38 Speaker 3 Right.

1:35:38 Speaker 1 And, uh-

1:35:40 Speaker 3 Okay. So bechalal there's a l- I think there's, um, about your father, first of all, I'm, I'm thinking of at least five stories that I know about your father that we can talk about, then I'm sure there's, uh, many hundreds that I don't know that you can share, and this I th- I think we, uh, hope there's a book being written about this. Uh-

1:36:02 Speaker 1 A very good book. It's gonna be literally thousands of pages.

1:36:05 Speaker 3 Yeah. I'm saying this is, we'd be, we'd be, we could be sitting here for, for days talking about it. Um, some-

1:36:13 Speaker 1 Let me, let me just say, my father got

1:37:10 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:37:11 Speaker 1 First days.

1:37:12 Speaker 3 Among Chassidim is brought to you by Chassidishe Der Her. We live in a chaotic world, a world where for us Chassidim as a Among Chassidim is brought to you by Chassidishe Der the levaya, and I did Kriya with the children. And then an older person came over to me, and he says he also has to do Kriya. So I asked, "Are you?" He says he's a brother of the nifti. I said, "Ooh, you are Reb Yossel's son?" So he said, "Yeah." So I said, "May I ask what your name is?" He says, "Lev." I said, "Lev? How come your name is Lev?" He says, "No, actually, my name is Levi Yitzchok." I said, "You must be kidding." I said, "And you're named after his father, right?" He says, "Yeah." So I said, "Sorry. By the way, when I was in Yechidus, the Rebbe asked me who you're named after. So I also have a connect- a very strong connection." And we became very, very good friends. And he told me, first of all, that he came to Crown Heights for Chaf Of, the fa- that year we made for 80 years of Reb Levi Yitzchok. 70 or 80?

1:41:15 Speaker 5 Uh, 80.

1:41:16 Speaker 3 Pe, Pe Alef, sure. So we, we made a thing in Crown Heights. It was a bar mitzvah of Levi Yitzchok. So we made a l- a, like a little Levi Yitzchok gathering, and he came. He is an exceptional person. Adel. Very, very smart. He's into computers. But he was... And he said that the Rebbe Zecharo was by his bris. Tav Shin Hey. In other words, a few months after Levi passed away.

1:41:40 Speaker 5 In, in-

1:41:40 Speaker 3 In Almata. Sure.

1:41:41 Speaker 5 Almata.

1:41:41 Speaker 3 He was born in Almata, and the, the Rebbe Zecharo was there. Anyway, so he was the first Levi Yitzchok.

1:41:46 Speaker 5 So when you were born, your father gave the name Levi Yitzchok.

1:41:49 Speaker 3 My parents, actually.

1:41:50 Speaker 5 Your parents named him.

1:41:51 Speaker 3 It was my mother, actually. It was more her idea. They were discussing the names, and my mother came up with the concept of giving Levi Yitzchok. And of course, my father jumped on the idea.

1:42:02 Speaker 5 And that was totally, um, novel at that time.

1:42:06 Speaker 3 Yeah, at that time it was. And of course, and, uh, came to the bris. Now, of course, the Rebbe didn't know about the name. The Rebbe just sent a letter for the... My parents sent a telegram, I guess, to the Rebbe that I was born. So the Rebbe sent a regular bris letter. But inside the letter, there was also a $5 bill. Now, $5 bills and brisin goes together because in Hayom Yom, the Rebbe says that there's a minhag that the sandek gives money to make dimme for the yeshiva, for the, for the baby. The Rebbe was mis- the Rebbe was sandek four times. One time before the nisias and three times after the nisias. Before the nisias was to Shalom Ber Hecht, zal zayn gezunt un stark, Rabbi JJ Hecht's son. And the three times after nisias was Reb Yosef Rosenfeld's in Fast, Reb Yosef Chaitchik in Fast, and Reb Yitzie Tannenbaum in Crown Heights, zal zayn gezunt. I don't know if by all of them, but by one of them for sure, the Rebbe said that the Frydiker Rebbe, the Rebbe, the Rebbe was by a bris with the Frydiker Rebbe in Varshe. And the Frydiker Rebbe said that the minhag is that you give money to make dimme, a down payment for the yeshiva, and the Frydiker Rebbe took out 20 zlotys. And the Rebbe said the 20 zlotys is the equivalent of $5, and the Rebbe gave $5 for the yeshiva. So my parents made a bris, and the Rebbe sent

1:43:34 Speaker 3 $5. Let anybody learn peshat, whatever they want, but that's what-- that was the mitzvah. I only found out about this about five, six years ago. My mother gave me the $5 bill. Um, so that was that. Then when, uh, and my father, of course, when he went to New York, Chaf Of, um, my father wanted to bring me to the Rebbe.

1:43:57 Speaker 5 A little, uh-

1:43:57 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:43:58 Speaker 5 ... baby.

1:43:59 Speaker 3 Yeah, this was, uh... I was born in Cheshvan, and this was Tamuz. And my father got a telegram back from the Rebbe that he could come. You know, "Nisias hakatan achshav ein hakadosh," that, uh, for me to travel now is not kedai, not, uh, hmm. Okay? So my father didn't bring me. And as a matter of fact, the Rebbe Zecharo asked him, "Where's Levi Yitzchok?" He said, "My father didn't wanna tell her that the Rebbe didn't let." He said, "That's a klein. Whatever, whatever is that psatered that he gave over there why I didn't come." The following year, my parents sent to the Rebbe Zecharo a picture of me, which is this picture right here.

1:44:45 Speaker 5 This is the picture that-

1:44:46 Speaker 3 The, the, the same. Now, it was bigger. It was about this size. I have, I have one exactly the same size.

1:44:51 Speaker 5 Show the camera.

1:44:52 Speaker 3 Yeah. Okay? But it was this picture. So when the Rebbe Zecharo got it, so my parents got a letter from the Rebbe Zecharo. This is an original letter from the Rebbe Zecharo.

1:45:08 Speaker 5 Mishpachas Garelik.

1:45:09 Speaker 3 Right. Yeah. Mishpachas Garelik hanichbodo. Shalom uvrachah. Ha-mikhtav va'tmunes kibalti b'moadom. I received the pic- the letter and the pictures. Seemingly, they sent more pictures besides for that one. Toda. Thank you. Ha'yiladim ne'imim vyafim. The children are sweet and nice. Tekablu mehem rev nachas b'chol haprotim. You should get from them a lot of nachas in all the details. K'hefztachem. As you wish. Now, Baruch Hashem, I have semikhah. I have a few semikhahs. But this is my semikhah, where she writes, "Levi Yitzchok bli ein hare a gantz bocher. Levi Yitzchok a gantz bocher." I was only three years old at the time. Okay? "B'brichas kol tov asayem. Teiresh shlemim vehatslachaskhem." And her signature. And then, "Dash v'ichulim tovim leha Alma Posner." Give regards to my Aunt Sarifka who was there as a, as a girl. Posner.

1:46:07 Speaker 5 Can you show it to the camera?

1:46:09 Speaker 3 Sure.

1:46:09 Speaker 5 But, uh, but a little closer. Perfect.

1:46:13 Speaker 3 Here's the letter, and here is the envelope where you could see C.H. Schneerson, 1418 President Street. And this actually collected miles because as you can see, first it was returned to the rebbetzin for additional postage, 10 cents . So, ain't that? Then it was sent to Gan Yisroel. Seemingly, they received it in Gan Yisroel, and my parents had already left Gan Yisroel already after the summer. So they wrote via Cala Paris 16, Milano, and that's how it got to my parents. So it took a little while till it got there, but it finally got there. So you could see over here the Levi Yitzchok That picture is also the whole story with the Rebbe's house. This is the Rebbe's house?

1:49:58 Speaker 5 That picture was hanging in the Rebbe's house, too.

1:50:00 Speaker 3 It was, yeah. You mean the picture of the Rebbe's house?

1:50:03 Speaker 5 That same picture.

1:50:04 Speaker 3 Can, can say.

1:50:04 Speaker 5 I think we wrote about it once.

1:50:05 Speaker 3 Could be. I don't know.

1:50:06 Speaker 5 Um-

1:50:07 Speaker 3 The Rebbe's house I remember

1:50:08 Speaker 5 ... that, um, also from the Unics.

1:50:10 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:50:11 Speaker 5 If I remember correctly, there's something with the, at the rebbetzin, that's how Mushka also said something about that picture. That picture we, is a pic- it was hanging in the Rebbe's, um, like study in his house in President Street.

1:50:21 Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. Okay.

1:50:22 Speaker 5 Yeah. So-

1:50:23 Speaker 3 Could be

1:50:23 Speaker 5 ... the whole thing about-

1:50:24 Speaker 3 The Rebbe's house, I don't, I don't-

1:50:25 Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah. The whole thing in that picture.

1:50:27 Speaker 3 And so this is the Levi Yitzchok. But then the first time I was in Yechidas-

1:50:31 Speaker 5 Oh, so, uh-

1:50:31 Speaker 3 ... which is another whole story

1:50:32 Speaker 5 ... my, my next question was when did you come to the Rebbe?

1:50:35 Speaker 3 Oh.

1:50:36 Speaker 5 That, that's what I wanted to know about.

1:50:37 Speaker 3 Okay. So first of all, I came to the Rebbe the first time I was seven. The Lazars, they used to go every two years. I don't know why we didn't, but they used to go. Now, the Rebbe Lazar today is in Russia. When I'm talking about right now, he wasn't born yet. He had two older sisters who, another-- the oldest one is my age. So she used to go, and she used to tell me what goes on in New York , you know, by the Rebbe. I wanted to know how tall is the Rebbe. You know, at least I did. I only saw pictures. That's, that's all there were. And those days there weren't too many pictures of the Rebbe. There were 10 pictures of the Rebbe. That's all there was. But every single night, I had a picture of the Rebbe in my room, in my closet right over here, this height. Every night I used to go to the picture of the Rebbe before I go to sleep, and I used to say, "The Rebbe should help me, and may his long life be yours, and give him to the Rebbe's long life." Every night. I still, I still say it today. Okay? So I had this sort of a relationship with the Rebbe. I, I never saw him, but I saw him ev-every single day. And, uh, when is we, when I was four years old, I got a letter from the Rebbe. When I was six years old, I got a

1:51:40 Speaker 3 letter from the Rebbe. My mother used to make me write, and the Rebbe used to write back. So this Rebbe in New York, I was buddy-buddy. You know, he writes me letters. I see him every day, and they, they say... So I knew that he's in the other end of the world, but I didn't feel far. I must say th-this really is what happened to me after Gimmel Tammuz After Gemotama, I just went back to my earlier part of life where the Rebbe on the other end of the world is running the show, and I just can't see him right now. And I'll, I'll see him tomorrow, you know, whenever I'll, uh, . Anyways, finally, when I was seven, my parents decided my-- that, that we should go to the Rebbe, you know. My mother hadn't been here really in seven years. The time before that, she was in New York was when she was pregnant with me. So this was seven years before. So now we came on Yud Ches Kislev. Yud Ches Kislev was on a Wednesday, if I'm not mistaken. I think Yud Ches Kislev was Thursday or Friday. W-whatever, I, I think it was on a Wednesday. The day before, on Yud Zay Kislev, the Tanya translated into Italian came off the press. The Rebbe asked my father really three years before to start. Translating Tanya in Italian, you're talking about a massive project. First of all, those days there was only Italian-English, which was Mindell, and the Rebbe did it.

1:53:09 Speaker 3 So here you have to take in Italian and translate it. So it, it was almost impossible. It's a whole long story. The Rebbe told my father who to use as a translator, et cetera, somebody in Trieste, a whole story. Anyways, so finally it came off the press mamash the day before. So my father decided to send it to the Rebbe, even if it's not bound yet. They're just-- even just the paper, so the Rebbe should see that it's printed, and, you know, very soon it's gonna be bound. And my parents decided that the first time that I'll see the Rebbe, I should give it to the Rebbe. The first time we saw the Rebbe was we came to Seven seventy. Those days, the Rebbe used to go home every day between l'ezech five thirty to six thirty for about an hour, approx. And you s- you were able to... Nobody obviously used to approach the Rebbe. Nobody approached. Almost nobody ever approached the Rebbe. If you wanted to talk to the Rebbe, you went to yechidus. You know, you made an appointment, months. If you, you could write a tztzl to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe would answer, but not approaching the Rebbe. The only people who would stand was when the Rebbe used to go out of mincha or ma'ariv, people are traveling, they would stand in the hallway, and the Rebbe would pass by them. If people were standing there, that means that people are traveling. So the Rebbe would say to everybody,

1:54:26 Speaker 3 "Fahrt gezunterheit, a mezuchah rabbs rus davis." Travel safely, and we should hear good news. If it was people from France, the Rebbe would say, "Bon voyage and bon novel." Anyways, so we decided the Rebbe's gonna go home soon, about five thirty. So we stood on the sidewalk of s- right, you know, between the, the last steps and the car. We stood. It was my moth-- My father didn't come with us, my mother and the six of us. My youngest brother wasn't born yet. My brother Yossi was only six months old. So I was the only boy from the, from the crew. I had four sisters, but I was the only boy. And I had the Tanya in a plastic. We saw the Rebbe's light go out, so we knew the Rebbe was coming out. The Rebbe walked out of Seven seventy. There's a light on top of the door. The Rebbe came out. He was sh... It was the first time that I saw... I mean, I've saw pictures, but the Rebbe was pos-- literally shining, you know, because the light and it's dark. The Rebbe came down, came down, came to us. The Rebbe stopped. We all said the berakhah of Shehecheyanu in unison. "Barukh atah Hashem Elokeinu melekh ha-olam, shehecheyanu v'kimanu v'higiyanu lazman hazeh." The Rebbe answered, "Amen." And then I went over to the Rebbe and gave the Tanya. The Rebbe took it. It was in a, a clear, clear plastic. The Rebbe saw it, it was like, "Ah." You know, the

1:55:49 Speaker 3 Rebbe didn't say anything, but, but, uh, the Rebbe did say a danke. But, you know, in a strong, a danke, you know. The Rebbe went to the car, and that was that. The following Shabbos, it was Fabrengen. It was Yud Tes Kislev, and then there was a Fabrengen. Now, the whole Seven seventy was then a quarter of what it is today. It was still the first shul, you know, till the first beam. And the Rebbe's table was twice this table, not much more. And the place was packed. I was a little kid. The Rebbe said, "Geholfen." My f- the, the... At the end of the Rebbe's table on the right side, the Rashag sat, the Rebbe's brother-in-law. My Zeidy, he used to stand behind the Rashag. So my cousin brought me a milk tax.

1:56:33 Speaker 5 Your father wasn't there?

1:56:34 Speaker 3 No. My father wasn't there for that whole trip. We were there for two months. And, uh, he brought me a milk box, and he put it right behind the Rashag's chair, and that, that was my place. For Fabrengens, that's where I stood. All of a sudden, in the middle of one of the... And for me, b'klal, this whole Fabrengen was gan eden because at that time, there were only three records of Nichayach. So that's the only stuff that I heard, basically, the, the, the, the nigunim. In Milan, you have four or five beers, so how often did I hear people singing nigunim, you know? But, you know, my, my Shabbos table, this, that, but very... And then you have Fabrengens once in a while, but it wasn't. And here I have hundreds, thousands of people singing the songs that I know, besta. Anyways, all of a sudden, in the middle of one of the nigunim, I see that people are starting to look in this direction, and I was trying to figure out, did I... 'Cause I, but in nigunim, I was just singing and dancing. I loved it. But if the sichas, I un- I spoke Yiddish, but I didn't understand the sichas. I was a little kid. But, uh, and all of a sudden, I see everybody's looking in this direction. It, I felt it. And then all of a sudden, the Rebbe's also looking in this direction with a smile. Then the people down here, you know, Rabiyai, Derden. So one of

1:57:50 Speaker 3 them tells me, "Geh, geh, geh. The Rebbe's calling. The Rebbe ruh dir." So I went. The Rebbe took a piece of cake, gave me a piece of cake, and I went back to my place. Years later, I looked at the Fabrengen, and I saw that the Rebbe said then that there were two major milestones reached this Yud Tes Kislev. In Teherah Sakzidis. And the first one is that the Tanya was printed in Italian. They have discussed the whole thing, that and then . That first we have to refine Asav, and then where is Asav? Says Rashin Humash that when Yitzhak blessed Asav, told him, , "You're going to have the fattest of the lands." Where is that? Says Rashiszu, "Italia sheli oven." Italy, clear. So the Rebbe says, "We're taking now the Spracha of Asav, and we are mevareret Italian." There was a whole sikha then. I-- Then many, many years later when the Igris Kodesh came out, the letters from the Rebbe. The Rebbe sent a Tanya in Italian to Shazar, the president of Israel. He doesn't speak Italian, but the Rebbe explains to him that in the Pasuk it says when the Rivka was pregnant that they were, they were fighting. It says, when Kesek comes, then Oifol, right? When Asav is above, uh, Yaakov falls down. And so during the time of Galus, Asav is on top. Moshiach is coming, Yaakov will be on top. So the Rebbe says, "Now we're taking Asav and, uh..." Look in the letter, that's a very

1:59:16 Speaker 3 geshmacke letter. So, um-

1:59:19 Speaker 5 Hem shchita that, the Rebbe gave you the-

1:59:21 Speaker 3 Lchait. I'm, I'm making one plus one equals two. It was that fabringen, and the Rebbe said that, so I would assume that that's what it was. That was one thing. Now Kislev. Now comes Hanukkah. So I davened every single Mincha Ma'ariv with the Rebbe in upstairs. They were there, and the Rebbe's davening in the small zal. It was very noticeable 'cause I was right there right after the Rebbe's table. And one time I walked out after Ma'ariv, it was Hanukkah. I walked out after the Rebbe left, and mitaml I see that there's somebody. I see that from the back. I didn't realize it was the Rebbe. And my mother was in the hallway, and she was, like, looking down. I came, I saw the Rebbe was pulling out from his back pocket here silver dollars for Hanukkah gelt. Give me a second here. This is a silver dollar that I got from the Rebbe. Hanukkah, tav shin chaf kes.

2:00:38 Speaker 5 There we go.

2:00:41 Speaker 3 This is the letter when I was four years old. This is when I was six. This is when I was nine. So yeah. So that was that Hanukkah's. I got Hanukkah gelt, which was also at that time, 'cause the Rebbe used to give to the bochurim, but then the Rebbe stopped. It's a long, long story. But anyways, I got Hanukkah gelt then. Then there was one time that we spent a lot of time in Pittsburgh by my bubby and zeidy.

2:01:10 Speaker 5 Wait, you had a chidas there?

2:01:12 Speaker 3 Wait.

2:01:13 Speaker 5 Oh, okay.

2:01:15 Speaker 3 And we decide we, uh, we're going to Pittsburgh. Now, our flight was supposed to leave, I think, around five o'clock, but we didn't wanna miss Mincha. Now, the Rebbe used to come out to Mincha three fifteen generally. But sometimes the Rebbe would come out three twenty, three twenty-five, and sometimes Rabbi Groner would come out and say the Rebbe said he's gonna come out ten minutes later, you know. Now, we had to leave seven seventy at three thirty on the dot in order to catch the flight in LaGuardia to go to Pittsburgh. Whoever was driving us, I don't remember, told us we have to leave at three thirty. So I figured this time I won't go inside for Mincha. I'll stay-- 'Cause to go outside in middle is gonna be hard for me, you know, between all the bochurim. We'll stand outside in the hallway. If the Rebbe will come into Mincha anytime before three thirty, at least we'll see the Rebbe go into Mincha, right? And then we'll take off to the airport. So we're standing there in the hallway. Half the Rebbe's there. The Rebbe walked out at three fifteen, but it was too late for me to go into the zal already. If I would've been inside, I could've stayed until the end of Mincha, and I may still make it out by three thirty 'cause Mincha used to take about ten minutes. So I was outside in the hallway. The Rebbe walked out from his room, and he saw me standing there,

2:02:25 Speaker 3 but he didn't say-- the Rebbe didn't say anything. Continued going into the zal. But I remember that the bochurim were shushking because the Rebbe looked something... Okay. The Rebbe came out. We were still standing there 'cause it was, you know, we had another two, three minutes. The Rebbe walked out. He saw me standing there. He stopped right by the elevator. The Rebbe called me over. The Rebbe asked me, , "Why didn't you davven Mincha with my minyan?" Some people said over there the Rebbe said with the Rebbe's minyan. I don't know. I think the Rebbe said. But I remember clearly of what it looked like. You know, the Rebbe asked me, That was that. I was saying it was-- that's how, uh, the relationship. We left Yud Gimmel Shevat back to New York, to, to New Milan. Came into this Kislev to Yud Gimmel Shevat. Yud Gimmel Shevat was on a Tuesday. Yud Shevat that year was Friday Shabbos 'cause I remember Friday night everybody prepared like there's gonna be a Maimer because tav shin chaf daled there was a Basale Ganym Friday night.

2:03:33 Speaker 5 Like, uh, like you described like the-

2:03:35 Speaker 3 Yeah, like the Rebbe in Shabi.

2:03:36 Speaker 5 -the governor.

2:03:37 Speaker 3 But, uh, lepoel the Rebbe walked in, and the Rebbe-- and so they told the Rebbe that, uh, they thought there's gonna be a Maimer, and the Rebbe said no, tomorrow. Anyway, so but I remember that Yud Shevat clearly. We were standing outside. Mincha was gonna be at three fifteen, Yud Gimmel Shevat, so we figured we'll come, just come to Mincha. So we came about a quarter to three, you know. Then I, like, talked to this one, talked to that one. Been a while, we're going back to Italy for my mother. You know, she wasn't here really in seven years, and who knows next time when she's gonna come back. As we were talking to some people there, Rabbi Chadakov happened to pass by, the Rebbe's secretary, number one secretary. He happened to pass by and went to the Rebbe's room for something like he used to do during the day. He came out, and he said these words, Hmm. The Rebbe wants we should go into Yichud right now.

2:04:31 Speaker 5 You, you were scheduled to go a different time?

2:04:33 Speaker 3 No. We was go-going back to Italy that day. My mother went when we came. Right away when we came.

2:04:37 Speaker 5 She had a Yichud.

2:04:39 Speaker 3 She had a... What happened was she came, and the first Yichud night after we came, the Rebbe asked Rabbi Chadakov, "Why didn't my mother go in that night?" Rabbi Chadakov said, "'Cause it wasn't prepared." So she went the next night to do whatever. So she went to Yichud then. But now the Rebbe want to see the whole family 'cause at that time, my little ones had gone to Pittsburgh already. They stayed there most of the time. Anyways, so we went into Yichud. But now we came in, it-- you were able to see the Rebbe was waiting for us. The table was clear. There was nothing on the table. the telephone, you know, two, three little things, but I'm saying, and the Rebbe was sitting with his hat, with his, you know, mamesh. We went in. The Rebbe spoke to my mother for a while. I don't know how long. And later I found out it was mostly about me. The Rebbe wanted to know who's my melamed, what do I learn, you know, how, how they're managing, but, you know, all kinds of stuff. Then the Rebbe spoke to, spoke to her a bunch of other things. Then the Rebbe spoke to my older sister. Then the Rebbe turned to me, and the Rebbe asked me, "Vos is dein nome? What is your name?" So I said, "Levi Yitzchak." "Vos lerners du? What do you learn?" So I said, "Chumash." "Velche Chumash? Which Chumash?" "Bereshis." "Velche parshah?" "Toldos." "Vos mein Toldos? What does Toldos mean?"

2:06:06 Speaker 3 I said, "The kinder, the children." "Vem is kinder? Whose children?" "Yitzchak's." "Ver is geven Yitzchak's tate? Who was Yitzchak's father?" But it, it took a while, you know, the, the Rebbe, everything with a smile, very, you know... "Ver is geven Yitzchak's tate?" "Avraham." "Ver given Yitzchak's kinder? Who are Yitzchak's children?" "Yaakov and Eisav." Then the Rebbe asked, "Ver is geven mer frum?" Now, I spoke Yiddish, a good Yiddish, but the word frum I never heard. For whatever reason, I don't know if in Italy they don't use it, I don't know, but I never heard the word frum. So I turned to my mother, and to my mother I talked to in Italian. So I told her, "Non capisco quella parola." I don't understand that word. But my mother was standing like this, vis-à-vis, stood. I reminded myself, Lazar is the, their oldest daughter, I told you she's my age. She one time told me, "Don't ask me where she heard, the Rebbe speaks Italian." So I reminded my... Where she knows from, I have no idea, but she did tell me, "The Rebbe speaks Italian." Later, I found that out on my own. That's another whole story. I had stuff. But, uh, so I turned looking back at the Rebbe. I figured, one second, the Rebbe speaks Italian, right? He heard what I asked my mother, right? I looked back at the Rebbe. The Rebbe with a big smile, the Rebbe says, "Ver is geven mer gut?" So I said, "Yaakov." In other words, the

2:07:40 Speaker 3 Rebbe understood where my, what my issue was, that Yaakov. So the Rebbe said, "Nu, ei bazei lamereden vegen Yaakov." That's the case, let's talk about Yaakov. Then the Rebbe asked, "Veist du Yaakov hat gehat kinder?" Do you know if Yaakov had any children? Said yep. I had a mazel. When I came that trip, Italian kid, my cousins, my uncles, they, everybody went crazy, you know, because it's the first time they see us. I got so many presents. And punkt about two weeks before, I got a present, a puzzle of the 12 Shevatim. So I knew. So the Rebbe asked me, "Veist du Yaakov hat gehat kinder?" Because it's the next parshah, Parshat Toldet, VaYeitzei. So I said yep. So the Rebbe said, "Veist du zeire nemem?" Do you know their names? I said yep. So the Rebbe says, "Fangen zung," start saying. So I said, "Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Dan, Naftali." The Rebbe raised his hand. I'll never forget that. "Genug. Enough." I said, "Okay." The Rebbe asked, "Vos iz geven de nome fun di driter?" What was the name of the third son? So I said, "Levi."

2:08:42 Speaker 6 Levi.

2:08:43 Speaker 3 "Vos iz dein nome?" What is your name? "Levi." The next question, I am 99% certain that the words were, "Vish timtus?" Like, who's Levi here? Something like that. At that time, I fig-- I don't know. I knew I'd just have to... There's no Rebbe. There's no waste, no wasting time, yeah? So I told the Rebbe, "Der Rebbe shtelt ba'shafet tzei Levis." The Rebbe sht created two Levis. I was seven years old. Okay?

2:09:13 Speaker 6 Vish timtus that you're Levi and-

2:09:16 Speaker 3 L-l-that Levi, du Levi, like something like, whatever. So I said, "Der Rebbe shtel ba'shafet tzei Levis." Okay. Then the Rebbe, not serious, but like a more, you know, like a more... I'll never forget that. And the Rebbe says, "Un nokh vemem bistu a nome?" Who are you named after? I was thinking, "How do I do it?" In Italian, I knew how to say yours to a king. I knew. But in Yiddish, I had no clue. How are you supposed to say in Yiddish to a king, your dine, zine? What are you supposed to do? And to say to the Rebbe, the Rebbe's tate, I also didn't want. I don't wanna say the Rebbe in front of the Rebbe, but I decided I'm not taking any chances, and I said, "The Rebbe's tate." When I said the Rebbe's tate, the Rebbe gave me a big smile, and he gave me this siddur.

2:10:20 Speaker 6 Hmm.

2:10:21 Speaker 3 This is the siddur I got. Yud Gimmel Shvat Tav Shin Kaf Kas.

2:10:27 Speaker 6 Israeli, Israeli siddur.

2:10:28 Speaker 3 The Israeli siddur, which has everything in here, right? Tehillim and, uh... Actually, I give it to a lot of kallos to daven on the day of the wedding, whatever. But, uh, this is what the Rebbe gave me then in Yechidas. So you asked before about the Yechidas, this was the Yechidas. But I remember going into daven Mincha after that with this siddur, and I remember we came into the zal. Everybody was waiting for Mincha. Weiss students, we were there for at least a half hour because it was way after 3:15, and I remember I was davening with everybody. I was talking about the siddur, you know, the

2:11:00 Speaker 6 So you went back to Milan, and what, what were the, um- The subsequent, uh, visits by the Rebbe as a child.

2:11:11 Speaker 3 So after that, I came to the Rebbe when I was ten and a half. I came in Tosh Shin Lamed Beis, nineteen seventy-two Tishrei. I was gonna be here for the whole Tishrei, but, uh, my cousin wasn't f- where I was supposed to stay wasn't feeling well, so I'll probably like I w- I was in Pittsburgh for the first till, uh, the, uh, Rosh Hashanah and Kippur and the first days of Succos, and I was here for Simchat Torah. But at that half a year, I learned in Pittsburgh. So I came in for Yut Tes Kislev. I came for Yut Shvat. I came in for Purim. I came in for Eid Al-Fitr. So I was here Eid Al-Fitr, Tosh Lamed Beis, It was special. That whole year, while we were... No, there was on- just one time I came back to New York because my mother came, and we went into Yechidut then. My sister became Bat Mitzvah then. I turned eleven. I'll never forget how we walked out of Yechidut. So then I saw the Rebbe's secretary, Rabbi Klein, who later became my father-in-law. But, uh, he told us that he, that he has a letter for my sister for the Bat Mitzvah. And I asked him, "Where's my letter?" I used to get letters from the Rebbe before on my birthdays, you know. I mean, I got, uh, three, four of them. He says, "No, you were in Yechidut." I said, "My sister was also in Yechidut." He says, "Yeah, but she became

2:12:26 Speaker 3 Bat Mitzvah." I said, "And I became eleven." So I remember I started crying like a baby. I- I- how come I didn't get a letter? And he started explaining to me as much as he was trying to, you know, "You were in Yechidut." It's, you know. I think the Rebbe told us then to go to the Ohel. I remember the Rebbe told us once to go to the Ohel. I remember we went there. It was snowing like... Those days, hard people hardly, you know, we only went to Yut Shvat. We went there. Went then. Yeah, then was Eid Al-Fitr, Shnas HaShivim. Uh, then the following year, I came again for a month. I was in New York for a month, from Purim till Pesach. Then in the summer of Lamed Gimel, that's when I came to stay. I came to Gan Yisroel, and then I went to Alteda, then Torah Parkway, et cetera. That first year, Tosh Lamed Daled, right after my Bar Mitzvah. There's a whole story with my Bar Mitzvah, but I'll get back to it. Now let me start with Bar Mitzvah. But my, my Bar Mitzvah was in Cheshvan. Now, the boys of my class at that time, Alteda, they, they went to Yechidut for their Bar Mitzvah. The Rebbe did not farher them in the pilpul, the ma'amar. The Rebbe used to farher the boys in the pilpul, the ma'amar. But my class, they s- they said that the Rebbe didn't. So I wasn't worried, you know, when I went

2:13:44 Speaker 3 to Yechidut. Now, that whole summer in camp, I learned with Rabbi Pinny Korff, the sichas, what my pilpul is going to be based on. Famous, there's in Chelek Vav, there's a whole thing, the questions that they asked the Rebbe about mitzvot tefillin, four questions and answers.

2:14:04 Speaker 6 Yeah.

2:14:04 Speaker 3 So that sicha, and the other sicha in Chelek Tes, Uksavtom, uh, about, uh, Bnei God, Bnei Reuven, whatever. So I knew the concept. My father came from Italy on a Sunday afternoon. Mon- Bar Mitzvah was Monday. Sunday night, we went into Yechidut 'cause Yechidut is to be Sunday and Thursday. So I went into Yechidut the night of my Bar Mitzvah. The next morning, I got an Aliyah by the Rebbe. And for Shabbos, we went to Milan. That's where the whole big Bar Mitzvah was, and I came back to the Rebbe for Yut Tes Kislev to go to yeshiva. We went to Yechidut. First of all, those days, one of the toughest things was you had to give to the Rebbe a letter from Dan Holler in a sealed envelope. And the, you know, Bochum and then Holler don't always see eye to eye. And Bochum had no clue what Dan Holler wrote to the Rebbe, but it had to be a sealed envelope. There's nothing he could do. Anyway, so that was my first thing I had to give the Rebbe, the letter. And I wasn't-- I was only 12, but, uh, I had my, my issues with Dan Holler. And the Rebbe looked at it and didn't say anything. Then the Rebbe said, seemingly my father on the fl- uh, you know, he, he prepared a pilpul for me, about five, six pages, and seemingly he sent the Rebbe a copy. I didn't know. I had just read it quickly before we went in

2:15:30 Speaker 3 just to see what-- 'cause that was the only time I could see the pilpul not to say it on Shabbos. We went Yechidut, and the Rebbe said, "Since I got a copy of what you're going to be saying, ""Efsher kannstu ibber zogn a nekude fun vos du gehst treytn."" Maybe you could say a, a point of what you're going to say. Those days, there was only one mitzvah, mitzvah tefillin. All the mitzvahs started in '74 in the summer. This was in the winter. It was only mitzvah tefillin since nineteen sixty-eight, '7 from the war. So I told the Rebbe that I'm going to be speaking about why the Rebbe chose the mitzvah of tefillin, because there was a war, and the passuk says, "VeRa UKol Hameha'aretz Ki Shem Hashem Nikra Aleichem. VeYiru Mimcheha." When the nations of the world will see the Rebbe's name on your forehead, "VeYiru Mimcheha." They'll fear you. Says the Gemara, "Eila Tefillin SheBeRoshy." This goes into tefillin. That's why I gave, like, a whole... The Rebbe looks up and says, "Hast farentert dish l'rosh un vos mit dish l'yad?" You only answered why you have to wear the tefillin on the head, but what about on the hand? So I said, "Well, there's another passuk, 'VeTar Avzroia Af Kodkod.' That the Bnei God, the Bnei Reuven, they were the pioneers that went into Eretz Yisrael. The berakhah that they got from Moshe Rabbeinu was 'VeTar Avzroia Af Kodkod.' That the, when they used to go to war, they used to

2:16:46 Speaker 3 chop off the hand and the head of the enemy with one shot." So it says in the meforshim that because the mitzvah of tefillin on the hand and the head, that they were able to do that. So I told the Rebbe that that's also for the head. This happened, the Rebbe gave me a berakhah. Then far tik, I went to Italy, came back for Yut Tes Kislev a month later. Came back for Yut Tes Kislev. But if I bring it Shabbos, Shabbos after Yutza's Kislev. After the Rashi Sikhe, all of a sudden the Rebbe tells Rabbi Groner to pull out a bottle of wa- mashke from under the table. Okay. The Rebbe takes the bottle, and the Rebbe calls out, "The bar mitzvah for Milan." I was thinking, "Is it me? My bar mitzvah was a month ago. I was-- I'm done." So I didn't go. I thought maybe there's somebody... I don't know. So Rabbi Groner from... He was standing next to the Rebbe, he sees me, he said, "Okay." So I came up, but I had no cup. I had no... I wasn't ready. Usually, Rabbi Groner used to have in his pocket cups. He had no cups. There's no cups. All of a sudden, the Rebbe's standing there with the bottle. I'm standing there. I'm waiting for a, at least a cup in it. The Rebbe took the cap of the bottle, the Rebbe put a mashke in the cap, and he gave me the cap. I drank it, and I turned

2:18:13 Speaker 3 red like a borick, you know, because it was the first time in my life that... So the Rebbe took a piece of cake. He gave me a second piece, a third piece, best of like to relax me. Whatever. And then the Rebbe closed the bottle, and the Rebbe said, "Zost el na bislda undiberike in Milan." You should, uh, uh, give out a little here and the rest in Milan. This was Yutza's Kislev. So the next day, I wrote to the Rebbe that I came to go to Yeshiva. But if the Rebbe wants to go back to Milan, I'll go back tonight. You know, no. So the Rebbe answered like this. I don't remember the exact lotion. I have it written somewhere. That what he said to give out a little here is because of machen. You're not allowed to prepare from Shabbos for after Shabbos. So the Rebbe couldn't give me just to give out in Milan. So that's what the Rebbe said, I should give some here and the rest in Milan. I, I wrote to the Rebbe that I'm-- I was planning to come here till Pesach, and then the Rebbe said when I'll go back for Pesach, that's when I should give it out. S-so I don't have to go back special. Fine. I'll put the story on the side. Comes Pesach, Yud Aleph Nissan. That year, Yud Aleph Nissan was on a Wednesday. Fabringen was gonna be Wednesday night. If I wanna go to Italy for Pesach, it's Thursday night, because

2:19:33 Speaker 3 the flights didn't go only at night, and they come during the... That year was Erev Pesach, Shechalil is Shabbos. It's Erev Pesach is Shabbos. So I'm gonna get there when? Friday afternoon. Now, Friday afternoon, and I still have a bottle of mashke that I have to go... I'm not even gonna be in shul for Shacharit because I'm just arriving, uh, eleven, twelve o'clock. It's Erev Pesach. So I was thinking, "I should go Wednesday night. I missed the Fabringen, but I have, I have to give out the mashke." I was, like, stuck in b- a couple of days before, and I didn't know what to do. How the Rebbe said my mother came for Yud Aleph Nissan, but she was planning to leave before the Fabringen to get there Thursday. Came Yud Aleph Nissan in the morning, that Wednesday morning, and the Rebbe came from his house. It was a beautiful, bright day. Now, the people didn't stand around the Rebbe. Later years, people started standing. I'm all, when the Rebbe came, there was nobody in sight. So we were almost by the corner of Kingston Avenue. You know, we watched the Rebbe go out of his car. In fact, when the Rebbe, when this... Seven seventy, so we went towards seven seventy. As we come towards seven seventy, Rabbi Klein comes out, he sees us, and he goes like this, and he asks us, uh, "Did you see the Rebbe?" I said, "Yeah." "Did the Rebbe see you?" I said, "I have no idea." "Well,

2:20:49 Speaker 3 he saw you, and he wants to see you again." He tells my mother and myself, "Go on to Geneivna Tachten." Okay. We went to Geneivna Tachten. The Rebbe came out from his room with a pack of Haggadahs. You had-- That was the first year that came out, a Haggadah hardbound. Now, the Haggadah is like this, but those days it was like this. So you had the Haggadah, which was thin, you know, like a booklet, like all the-

2:21:14 Speaker 6 You're talking about the Rebbe's Haggadah?

2:21:15 Speaker 3 The Rebbe's Haggadah.

2:21:15 Speaker 6 Yeah.

2:21:16 Speaker 3 So you had the Kontrei Sim like 'til nineteen-- 'til Tashlamim Gimel. Then there was this first bound one. The Rebbe had a bunch of bound ones and a bunch of Kontrei S... And here, the Rebbe had Mihtavim Klalim. This is how the Rebbe came out, like this. The Rebbe gave my mother a thick Haggadah. Then the Rebbe gave for my father, and my father wasn't there, a thick Haggadah for my father. Then the Rebbe asked me, "Du ishem bar mitzvah?" I was thinking, "Rebbe, "" The Rebbe even gave him mashke. The, but Rebbe asked, "Du ishem bar mitzvah?" I didn't answer, of course. And the Rebbe gave me a thick Haggadah. Then the Rebbe asked me, "Dein alter shvester ishem bas mitzvah? Your older sister, is very bas mitzvah?" Of course, I didn't. And the Rebbe gave me a... Gave it to me or to my mother? I remember he asked me, "Dein alter shvester ishem bas mitzvah?" Then there was only thin ones left. The Rebbe told my mother she should say the names of the next children, and he's gonna give a Haggadah for each one. And so the next one is Sasha. She was eleven, takvim, on the Bas Mitzvah. The Rebbe took each Haggadah. The Rebbe looked like th... No, the Haggadah is like, like this, like this, like this. Das is for Sasha. Next one. Sheiner Sara. The Rebbe looked like this, like this, like this. Das is for Sheiner Sara. Each of the Hagada, each of all the Haggadahs.

2:22:43 Speaker 3 Then there was one left. You know, once the Rebbe gave for all the chi-- There's one left. The Rebbe took out the Mihtavim Klalim. The Rebbe gave one to my mother in Yiddish. Then he gave-- the Rebbe gave one in English. Then the Rebbe said, "Mazal is übertachen af Italianisch." Then the Rebbe gave for my father a Mihtav Klalim in Yiddish. And the Rebbe said, "English, a dafir nisht haben." English one he doesn't need. Then the Rebbe gave me a Mihtav Klalim, and he gave to-- for my sister. Then there was one Haggadah left. I was dying to the, who is this one for? And as soon as that happened, the Rebbe said, "Un di Haggadah zollen men geben Daniels." There was a Jew in Italy, Reb Daniel Daniels. As a matter of fact, I see on the WhatsApps, they would send out all the sichas. So they have a picture of Yud Aleph, Nisán, Taf Shin, Lamed, Beis. If you look on the Rebbe's right, there's a guy with a mustache. That's Mr. Daniels. Not gonna go-- It's a whole long story who Mr. Daniels is. So the Rebbe said to give it to him. Fertig. Then the Rebbe asked my mother something private. That was it. Fertig. And then we went to Moskitas, started writing in to each Haggadah who it belongs to, you know? As we're doing that, mit amol, zzz. When the Rebbe used to buzz from his room to Moskitas, it was like a zzz, like a... So Rabbi Klein

2:24:13 Speaker 3 picks up the phone. The Rebbe wants you should come back. So we took the whole thing back. We went back to Gan Yina Tachten, and the Rebbe was there waiting. And the Rebbe asked back for the one for Daniels, which was a thin one, and the Rebbe gave a thick one.

2:24:28 Speaker 6 Oh.

2:24:28 Speaker 3 And the Rebbe said, "Er iz dos vert." He deserves it. Fine. That was that. We went back into... By the way, you know that Yud Aleph Nisán, the Rebbe said one time, it's a day, a day of his beitusdis. Don't talk to anybody. Baruch Hashem, we got two yechidim in the, in the-

2:24:45 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm

2:24:46 Speaker 3 ... went back to the Moskitas to write vaiter. And all of a sudden, zzz. Again, the Rebbe's calling. So we waited, and the Rebbe spoke a minimum of three to four minutes. He was talking, and, and Rabbi Klein was listening, listening. And the Rebbe's talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talk. Finally, he closed. So he says, "No, you don't have to go back." The story is as follows. The thick Haggadah, right? What is it? In the beginning, they have the Haggadah with the Rebbe's ha'aras. Then later, they added sichas and letters. The last thing on, in the si- in the Haggadah is the siyum on Masechta Pesachim, which is printed in Likutey Sichos Chelek Yod Aleph, the end of the Masechta. The last words mamash on the bottom, the, the siman where it talks about Shehecheyanu, Pidyon HaBen, Bris Milah. So the end mamash is the what's the reason why we don't say Shehecheyanu by a Bris Milah? Mishum tzar ha-odyanuka, because of the tzar of the baby. When the Rebbe received the Haggadah that the Vaad printed, the Rebbe said it's no good, because a Sefer has to finish with something good.

2:25:57 Speaker 6 Siman betayiv.

2:25:57 Speaker 3 Siman betayiv. And here you finished off with, uh, something bad. Now, they already had printed the Haggadah. They didn't know what to do. Now, there's two versions to the story. I'm gonna tell you the ver- the version the way I remember it from then, and then how I heard this year a different version, but I'll still stick to mine. So what I heard then was that the Rebbe told the Vaad that they have to figure out what to do. So they asked the Rebbe what should they do. The Rebbe said they should make a stamp with something there, and this way it'll be finished with siman betayiv. So at least then I heard that the Vaad decided to put Lashana BaBaviru Shalayim. Here, then, the Haggadah, not over there. You have to learn all the simanim. Then that's, uh-

2:26:37 Speaker 6 Siman-

2:26:37 Speaker 3 ... Lashana BaBaviru Shalayim. So the Rebbe basically told Rabbi Klein that I should go upstairs to the Vaad, 'cause these Haggadahs that the Rebbe have doesn't have the Lashana BaBaviru Shalayim. So therefore, I should go upstairs. But upstairs, the Rebbe told my Rabbi Klein the whole story, that how they printed, and it was the, you have to siman betayiv and da, eh. So I went upstairs to the Vaad. I remember I walked into Rabbi Holtime, Rabbi Shapiro, you know? Zalman Chanan was there, and, uh, and mit amol I told-- And Shalom Jacobson. And I told them I was by the Rebbe now, and the Rebbe gave us Haggadahs, and, uh, ooh, they were so happy to... 'Cause this was the first time they heard some back from the Rebbe about the stamp.

2:27:20 Speaker 6 Vayz dayes.

2:27:21 Speaker 3 This year, I heard a version that the Re- that they decided to put Lashana BaBaviru Shalayim. At that time, I heard that the Rebbe said they should. But whatever.

2:27:28 Speaker 6 Okay.

2:27:28 Speaker 3 Bottom line is that that's what it was. So once I got the Haggadah and thus, I already went back Wednesday night, and, uh, I missed taking the fabrengen of Yud Aleph, Nisán, Taf Shin, Lamed Dalet. But, uh, the Rebbe gave out the mashke, et cetera.

2:27:42 Speaker 6 Right.

2:27:42 Speaker 3 So that was a hempscha to my bar mitzvah.

2:27:45 Speaker 6 Okay. So in the questions that I prepared, we didn't even, uh, uh, we didn't get to a lot of them still. So, uh, I should've anticipated this, uh, before. So I think what we're gonna do is, b'li neder, we're gonna have to do a part two to this, uh-

2:28:06 Speaker 3 Two, three, four

2:28:07 Speaker 6 ... two, three, four.

2:28:08 Speaker 3 Whatever, whatever it'll take, yes.

2:28:08 Speaker 6 If we go-

2:28:09 Speaker 3 With pleasure

2:28:09 Speaker 6 ... if we go backwards, we can, with y- with your father, we could do a few podcasts. But, uh, at least what I have on my, on my reshim of questions, Be'ezras Hashem, b'li neder, um, for the listeners, we'll do a part two.

2:28:23 Speaker 3 And Be'ezras Hashem, Moshiach will be here before that. So, uh-

2:28:27 Speaker 6 So this-

2:28:27 Speaker 3 Lashana BaBaviru Shalayim.

2:28:28 Speaker 6 Amen.

2:28:29 Speaker 3 As, as the Rebbe said, "L'sainu betayiv."

2:28:31 Speaker 6 Amen. Okay. Thank you very much.

2:28:33 Speaker 3 Pleasure.