Ep. 63: The CIA of Lubavitch with Rabbi Avrohom Shmuel Levine

00:00 Speaker 1 He says, "Good morning, Rabbi Saloveitchik." "Ah, good morning, Rav Ellberg. How are you?" He says, "Fine." So the first thing Rabbi Ellberg says to him, "Rabbi Saloveitchik, how did you like it yesterday?" He says, "What do you mean?" "Yesterday in Lubavitch." He says, "Oh, what are you talking about? What a, what kind of impression that was. I, I was hes- had a suffering if I should make a Brocha Chacham Orizim," that you make when you see six hundred thousand people. He says, "And they're all his."

00:30 Speaker 2 As we enter the new year, secure your family's daily Tzedakah with Keren Hashanah. Founded by the Rebbe in nineteen fifty-three, taf shin yud daled under Machneh Israel, Keren Hashanah ensures that every single day of the year, including the Tzedakah given in honor of Shabbos and Yom Tov, will be given on your behalf. The Rebbe urged everyone to enroll every family member, men, women, and children, by contributing for each day of the upcoming year. It's the ultimate way to draw down continuous brachos for you and the entire family. Head over to kerenhashanah.com right now and sign up on behalf of your entire family before Rosh Hashanah. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please like and subscribe so that others can enjoy it as well. In addition, if you've benefited in any way from Among Chassidim podcast and would like to give something back, you can do so today at derher.org/donate. I'm Yossi Kamen. Welcome to Among Chassidim by Derher, an ongoing fabrengen about life as a Chassid, our vibrant connection with the Rebbe, and inspired living shaped by the way he teaches us each and every day. Shalom Aleichem, Rabbi Levin. How are you?

02:01 Speaker 1 Aleichem Shalom.

02:03 Speaker 2 Okay. Thank you so much. And all the way from Eretz HaKodesh. Appreciate it. Amen. Um, so I would like to begin, um, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Levin. Who is Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Levin? Which Levin? Where do you come from? Where are your parents from? Start like that.

02:25 Speaker 1 Coincidentally, I'm a Cohen. Usually Levin is a Levi. I'm a Cohen. Anyway, um-

02:30 Speaker 2 I, I bumped into, I bumped into Rabbi Berel Levin from the library-

02:34 Speaker 1 Yeah.

02:35 Speaker 2 ... yesterday, and I said, "One second. I'm interviewing Rabbi Levin. Are you related?" He's like, "No, but what, what we have in common is that I'm not a Levi and he's not a Cohen."

02:44 Speaker 1 I am a Cohen. He's not a Levi.

02:45 Speaker 2 Oh, you are a Cohen.

02:46 Speaker 1 Yeah. He's not a Levi.

02:47 Speaker 2 He, he's not a Levi and he's a Cohen, right. Yeah. Sorry, I got it wrong. Okay. Go ahead.

02:51 Speaker 1 Anyway, uh, well, actually, I originate from a very Litvisher family. My grandfather, my father's father was a, a Musmach from, uh, Rav Paul Shapiro from, uh, Volozhin. He was a Rav in three different, uh, cities in Russia and Belarus and White Russia at that time, in a place called Marupol, Marupol, Vyazma, and what is the... I forgot the third one. Marupol, Vyazma. Anyway, he was a Rav there, and he was incarcerated because at the time of the NK, NKVD with the, you know, you, you, you weren't allowed to, uh, disseminate and, and learn Torah in public or in private. It's like the time of the Friediker Rebbe. And, uh, he said that as he told the, the, um, the, the officials there from the NKVD, he said, "As long as people want to learn and I'm a Rav, I cannot forfeit my duty to teach them Torah, and I will teach them Torah." And for that, he was incarcerated, and I think he died in prison. His-- At first, uh, his feet decayed. They had to amputate both of his legs. And that was his mesirus nefesh for, for Torah. Now, but before that, he was-- Reb Leivick was the, uh, chief rabbi of, uh, I can't, I can't pronounce that name. Dip-rem-rem...

04:24 Speaker 2 Well, they changed the-

04:24 Speaker 1 Dnieper. Dnieper. Okay.

04:25 Speaker 2 It used to, it used to be Dnepropetrovsk. I mean-

04:28 Speaker 1 Yeah, that's it. Yeah

04:28 Speaker 2 ... it used to be Dnepropetrovsk, then Dnepropetrovsk.

04:30 Speaker 1 Yekat- Yekatérinoslav. At that time it was Yekatérinoslav.

04:34 Speaker 2 The Rebbe's father.

04:35 Speaker 1 Yeah. And he was a chief rabbi means that he had under his jurisdiction the villages or the small cities around him. And one of those was, I think, Marupol, where my grandfather was Rav. So from time to time, my grandfather would, uh, come to Reb Leivick, to his house, to discuss communal affairs, uh, Halachic Mishnas, uh, stuff like that. He would, uh, stay at his house for a day or two. And, uh, vice versa, if when Reb Leivick would go visit, uh, Marupol, he would stay at my grandfather's house. It's funny that although he was a, a Litvisher and he was a Misnagid, it wasn't like to- like today, the Misnagdim like today. He was, you know, a, a Chassid-

05:20 Speaker 2 I think the Rebbe said there's no Misnagdim today.

05:22 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. But at that time, there was. He was a Elevei Yitzchak. Reb, Reb Mendel Futerfas, Norman, he always used to tell me, "You should know your grandfather, although he was, he was a Litvisher or Misnagid, but he was a Elevei Yitzchak, uh, honest person." And the rayah is that, that he once came back, my father told me he once came back from a visit from, uh, from Reb Leivick, and he says, he says that, I think that he says that his wife-- M-my, my brother-- My father had a sister, um, Leah, and, uh, she-- and he came back And he said to, to his wife, he says, "You know, we, we should start thinking about, uh, Leivick's older son, R' Leyer." You know, what I want to bring out is that although he knew he was a labobitcher, and he's a literature, but, you know, he, he recognized the greatness of the Rebbe even at that age. I think he was nineteen years old at the time.

06:22 Speaker 2 Wow.

06:22 Speaker 1 But he recognized his greatness even at that age. Anyway, what happened was that now it's known that Reb Itche Masmid would go around from town to town to, I think he was a shadar. And, uh-

06:37 Speaker 2 Right

06:38 Speaker 1 ... and he would also try to get Bochum to go, come to Tomche Tmimim that time. So it was, I think my father was, it was after bar mitzvah, I think he was fifteen years old. I'm not sure, you know, that, that bracket. And, uh, it, it was a Yutras Kislev that he, it was, uh, uh, that Reb, Reb Itche Masmid came to, uh, wherever that was, Meropol or Vyazma, and, uh, it was Yutras Kislev. So Reb, he was in the shul of my grandfather, which was not a Chabad shul, but he nevertheless, he farbrengted with the, with the congregants there. And then he said, I know he, he took a lot of mashmia at the time and all that. He said to my father, "You have to come to, uh, Tomche Tmimim. You have to, you should come to Tomche Tmimim. It would be like the Hoisi Yoikeh Mizayron." That's like to take out a diamond from a, from the mud or something like that. Now, my grandfather was at Yutras Kislev, was in the other room learning Gemara Yutras Kislev, and he heard that. My father told me he didn't like it, but it passed. You know? He didn't like it that, that phrase. Anyway, Reb Itche Masmid per-per-persuaded my grandfather to send my father to Tomche Tmimim. And my grandfather said, "In, in Emesen, I would want you to go to Slabodka or to one of the other Volozhin or whatever it was at that time, you know, for the literacy yeshivas.

08:22 Speaker 1 But since now it's the wartime and it's dangerous and all that, so go to Tomche Tmimim. I've just gotten to learn, and if you know how to learn, I'm not, I don't know, but a Yiras Shamayim is the Zichra Blaib." And so that's why, and he, he came to, that's when, you know, he came to the, to, uh, to Tomche Tmimim. He was there years, and he-

08:43 Speaker 2 To where?

08:44 Speaker 1 In, in Brisk or Metchuk or Kharkov, and these underground yeshivas at that time. And he was there until, uh, nineteen forty... Oh, there's an interesting thing. There's one time that, um, Reb Leivick... My father says it's the Rebbenish for Satan, but he, he was a young child at that time, so I, I think he got mixed up with Reb, with Reb Leivick. Anyway, whether it's Reb Leivick or the Rebbenish for Satan, uh, my father says he once came, he once came to the shul at Rosh Chodesh time, and he was there, and he came to shul. And there was a bris-

09:24 Speaker 2 To his fa- to his father's shul?

09:26 Speaker 1 To his father's shul, right.

09:27 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

09:27 Speaker 1 And, uh, and there was a bris at that, that morning. And the members, they didn't know anybody else. They knew the Rav. So they mechabed, they would mechabed my grandfather's son the Kohen. So he said, "No, give it to..." He rejected it, and he says, "No, give it to either Reb Leivick or the Rebbenish for Satan," whoever it was, uh, you know, one of those two.

09:53 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

09:53 Speaker 1 So that's, uh, it was a, a nice Bikur, you know, coming from somebody from Volozhin.

10:00 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

10:01 Speaker 1 Anyway, so, um, at one time, this was in nineteen, nineteen forty-six, yeah, in forty-six at that time, when people from Anash would go out from Russia through forged passports. You probably know them, the, the-

10:23 Speaker 2 The, the story with the Shalom and with the-

10:25 Speaker 1 Yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Right. The Shalom, the forged passport.

10:28 Speaker 2 The great, the great escape.

10:29 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, he went to Lemberg first. So it was a couple of weeks before that, uh, Shalom was, uh... And he w- he wasn't registered to be there. What happened was, NKVD caught my father, and they tortured him. They knocked out fourteen teeth. They tortured, tortured him very much. They said-

10:54 Speaker 2 Fourteen?

10:55 Speaker 1 Yes. And they said, "Listen-

10:56 Speaker 2 How many teeth do you have?

10:57 Speaker 1 You have more than that, but most of them. And, and, and, and they told him that, "The reason we, we arrested you is that we know, we know that you know, and we're looking for certain people." Gave him a list of people, among those Reb Mendel Futerfas and all, and, and o- and others from, you know, the Chidushi that time. "We know we're looking for them. Now we know you, you, you know where they are. You're affiliated with them. We're giving you two weeks, two weeks to come back and tell us exactly where they are. And if not, we're gonna shoot you. And don't think you'll be able to escape because you'll be, you'll, you'll be followed." My father told me he went out of there, he was sweating. At night, he was crying. He's not gonna be melshin. How could he, you know, melshin somebody else? And he said, he said like he said, I think he said to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that if he gets out, he saves him from there, he'll be saying, he'll say every day he'll say the whole Tehillim, something like that. He made some kind of a nedar. Because I think that was it, because I rem-- as I remember, my, my father, he would... Every day I would see him saying Tehillim. So, uh, so what happened was that he came to, he, he already was married, and my mother was pregnant with me at that time. And he went down to the Shalom, and he hopped

12:31 Speaker 1 into one of those. They looked at him. He wasn't registered. They were afraid that he came to, to sort of like spy on them, and they wanted to throw him out. And he said, "I'm not mo- I'm not moving from here." This story I was told by Rav Shalom Ber Butman. He was there at the time. Rav Shalom Ber, alav ha-shalom u-zichro. He was there at the time, and he was very adamant. He said, "I'm not leaving here." Until this day, he doesn't... I mean, he never knew how he, he escaped 'cause he was told he was being followed. Okay, that's, that's the end of the, the period of, uh, Russia.

13:06 Speaker 2 So that's how he got to, to the United States.

13:08 Speaker 1 Okay. He got to the United States. Then he went to Ellis Island like everybody else, you know. And at first, he went to Boston. I learned by, uh, alav ha-shalom u-zichro Rav Chaim Fogelman and alav ha-shalom u-zichro Yisroel Gordon in Worcester, in Worcester. First was in Boston and then in Chelsea, a place called Chelsea. From there, he went to Worcester, and I was in first grade or kindergarten there.

13:32 Speaker 2 So you were born in America?

13:33 Speaker 1 And I was born, I told you, I was born in, in-

13:36 Speaker 2 Oh.

13:36 Speaker 1 In Austria. That was on transit 'cause-

13:39 Speaker 2 Ah, okay

13:39 Speaker 1 ... you know, it'd be-

13:40 Speaker 2 Like in the, in the DP camp.

13:42 Speaker 1 DP camp, exactly. And, uh, I came-- And then he got a job in Louisville, Kentucky. And when I came bar mitzvah and all that, it was-- He couldn't s-- It's not like today. I hear there's yeshivas there. There's a yeshiva there today. But at that time, they didn't have any yeshivas there, and it wasn't, uh... It was more modern orth- modern Orthodox. And I came to-- So I learned at day school there until bar mitzvah, and then he sent me to, uh, to New York, and I was in Beth Rivkah D.

14:16 Speaker 2 So you went by yourself as a child to the-

14:18 Speaker 1 Well, well, he took me. He, he, he, uh... At first, he, he took me with a Greyhound bus, you know.

14:24 Speaker 2 I'm saying but you were living, you were living-

14:25 Speaker 1 Yeah

14:25 Speaker 2 ... in the dormitory.

14:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

14:27 Speaker 2 What year are we talking about?

14:28 Speaker 1 We're talking about now nineteen sixty... sixty-two. Sixty-

14:34 Speaker 2 Did you-

14:34 Speaker 1 Toshu HaBais.

14:36 Speaker 2 Did you see the Rebbe-

14:37 Speaker 1 Toshu HaBais.

14:37 Speaker 2 Did you see the Rebbe before then?

14:38 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I stayed by somebody before that. I learned in another yeshiva on the East Side before because they didn't have a place for me. So I stayed by, uh, Mishpacha Harach. And he would go from time to time to visit, uh... He would go to the Big Farbrengens. He wasn't Lubavitcher. He was Navardik. And, uh, but his wife was a Chaim, Berke Chaim's, uh, sister. So he was, uh, acquainted with the, with the Lubavitch community, especially since his family was Lubavitch. So the Big Farbrengens, Yud Shvat or, you know, Yud Tes Kislev, he would go, uh, t- from the East Side to Crown Heights. At that time, it was Albany Terrace or Nostrand Avenue. One of those, you know, was before the Rebbe started Farbrengen, the Big Farbrengens in seventy, seventy. So I remember this still on Kingston, there was those trolley cars, you know, the buses, uh, you know. So the first Farbrengen that I came that I saw the Rebbe was before my bar mitzvah. It was before my bar mitzvah. He-- I came, and I saw the Rebbe. It was... I think it was, I was eleven years old. In nineteen Toshu Tes. Toshu Tes Kislev, Yud Toshu Tes. I came in. It was the middle of a Ma'amar. I-- How do I know? Because everybody was standing. And that's the first time that I s- heard and saw the Rebbe, and it made a very big impression. I never saw a thing like that, you know. I didn't know what

16:15 Speaker 1 that was all about. And, uh, it did make impression. I didn't understand anything, but I still remember the Rebbe speaking. I don't remember what he said, but I remember his voice and his, uh... And it was very, very, you know... It, it ha- It had an, uh, an emotional effect on me at that time.

16:36 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

16:37 Speaker 1 Later on, when I started learning in Beth Rivkah. So, um, okay. So I was in, uh, uh, uh, and, uh, uh, we finished Beth Rivkah in nineteen sixty-six. Nineteen sixty-five, actually.

16:54 Speaker 2 You finished, like, the high school?

16:56 Speaker 1 Yeah. I didn't go to high school. I learned it with, uh... I was, uh... There was a, a class after. When everybody went to high school, Rabbi Tevelbaum, alav hashalom, gave a class on Sukkah Baba Basra every year and on it. I was there. And, um, then in nineteen sixty-five, when I finished Beth Rivkah, in those days, when you finished Beth Rivkah, it was like the group, they were, the groups were divided into three. Some went to Montreal for a year or two, and then go to seventy, seventy. Some went to Newark for a year or two, and then come to seventy, seventy. Some went to Chabad. Now, I, I was from those that went to Chabad. Now, my birthday is in Tammuz. I was in Yechidas in Tammuz. But in those days, when you would go, uh, overseas to learn, you would go have a special Yechidas with the Rebbe because of prayer. So although six months ago, Tammuz, I was in Yechidas, but we came refes from Parshat Bereshit. After Parshat Bereshit, I went into Rebbe Yechidas, uh, again. And You, you-- Well, I don't wanna jump. You, you remind me after I tell you about this, what happened that Shabbos Breishis by Farbrengen. But just let me finish the, the Yefis. So after Shabbos Breishis, I, I came, I went into the Rebbe for Yefis, and the Rebbe looks at his schedule, and I'm going to... Well, uh, he says, "You go..." He says to me, "You're going to Eitz HaSo," "So

18:46 Speaker 1 I wanna make a deal with you. Write to me every month." And he looks up at me with a half a smile, and he says, "And I don't mean you should write to me about the weather, but tell me... Write to me about what you're learning. And preferably," he says, "Uh, it should be that time." Okay, and that's what I did. And I, and I... So when I was there the first month, of course, I did that. I never expected an answer. But lo and behold, I did get an answer. I did get a, a reply. The funny thing is that every time, every month that I sent in, sent in a letter, I always got an answer.

19:38 Speaker 2 Hmm.

19:39 Speaker 1 And okay, now I'm gonna come back to that. I don't want, don't want, uh, forget about a very interesting anecdote that happened Shabbos Breishis before I, before I left. Those days, they didn't break the, the shul yet. Now it's my Kingston Avenue.

19:58 Speaker 2 Right.

19:58 Speaker 1 But in those days, that's already after the second time, they broke the shul t-two times. And well, now, before that, the seven seventy was almost like daled, daled, you know. It was very, very narrow. It was very... It wasn't as wide as now. So when you stand by Farbrengen, there wasn't such a big Ohel at that time. So if you stand by Farbrengen, wherever you stand, especially if you're close to the Rebbe, you could always hear. If they weren't singing loud, you could hear when people went up to the Rebbe. At that time, they would go up to the Rebbe more frequently. It wasn't like in the last years, only when you had a bottle. But that time, everybody went over with his own bottle and smoke or whatever, whatever he wanted to say, say l'chaim. So, uh, I remember this distinctly. Uh, I don't know if you ever heard there was a Chossid, Reb Moshe Dubinsky. He was a bit masklir. He was a masklir Chassidis. He was known-

20:58 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

20:58 Speaker 1 To be a masklir Chassidis. And I heard him, and at that time, the only... There was only the Kontreisim of the Friediker Rebbe. The Maamarim of Tov Shin Alef weren't out yet.

21:13 Speaker 2 In book form.

21:15 Speaker 1 Tov Shin Alef from, uh, Tov Shin Yud Alef. I think there's Tov Shin Alef in the Friediker Rebbe too, something with Tov Shin Yud. Anyway, there was, uh, I don't remember exactly. I think it was Tov Shin Alef. So, uh, it wasn't printed yet. And I hear him going up saying l'chaim, and he asks the Rebbe, "When are they gonna print the Maamarim from Tov Shin Yud Alef?" And the Rebbe says to him, "Until Tov Shin Yud Alef. Do you know all the Maamarim until Tov Shin Yud Alef?" So that's I remember that distinctly that... Anyway, I, I was in... Now, Just one moment. Now, before I, before I went to Eitz HaSo, uh, the-- my chaverim told me, uh, "You should know you're going now to Eitz HaSo. Because he didn't send people. You be very-

22:30 Speaker 2 The Rebbe.

22:31 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. You know, "He's a Nifid, and stay away from him, or else you also become a Nifid." I'm a bocher, you know. I was sixteen, seventeen years old, so naive. I'm a naive. I don't know from... You know, they tell me that. So I come to Chabad, and I wasn't disrespectful, Chas ve'Shalom. I would say hello and that, but then I would, I would stay, I would stay far away. I wasn't one of his boys, you know, that. And, uh, yeah, I didn't have anything... Tried not to have anything to do with him. I think it was the second month I was there that I wrote to the Rebbe my monthly letter. I mentioned something. I asked him a question about in a Rebbe. And the Rebbe says, "I have to look again at my ." So as soon as I get an answer like that from the Rebbe, so all the, you know, all the, the brainwashing that I had beforehand was this Batal Legamre, Afid Arel doesn't exist, and I started with him.

23:43 Speaker 2 Shabbos chime.

23:44 Speaker 1 And I must tell you, they made a mistake about this man. You could-- First of all, you could see it now, too. See, the reason they were against him, they cons- they considered him a Nifid because he didn't send people to, to the Rebbe. He would say, "Before going to the Rebbe, you have to sit and learn and, you know, be, be, uh, be, be, uh, learn Mishna, Chassidus, you know, Davening, Davenede, and then you can go. You can be a Keilita B'mekom Otzbo." See, remember the first part was farkert. You just go, HaMoreh Pashua already, you know, do what... Do his, do his thing. It's like Maimon L'Matan. Remember, Shloime Chaim helped Maimon L'Mat. That's the way I, I, uh, interpret it. But, um, but when I started speaking with him and getting close with him, I-- it wasn't at all as, as they mentioned because there were times when I didn't understand something in a, an answer that the Rebbe, uh, one of the letters that the Rebbe wrote to me, and I came to him to ask, and he saw that it was the Rebbe's letter. He said, "Just a moment." He went... Well, he went with a... He put on his hat. He went with... He, he had his kapote on anyway. Put on his hat and a gartel and his hat, and I think he, you know... And he got up and looked at it. A Nifid doesn't do that. Right. We also know now that, um- Yeah ... this

25:18 Speaker 1 that he was telling the Bachim not to come was because he'd had a told not to come. Exactly, exactly. Now, I'll tell you an interesting thing. I said this many times, and it's, you know, it, it, it, it remains, uh, in my mind, I remember it, uh, very vividly. You see, like I said, I was there in 1965. I came Tosh Ha-Levav. In Hebrew, it's Tosh Ha-Levav. I came Chesed. When I came there, there were, uh, a kvutze, Rav Zalman Gopé and, uh, uh, Itche Gorowitz, uh, uh, Avraham Alter Helzberg, uh, who else? Uh, uh, Noska Wolf. They're older, older g- older guys. Today, they're already, you know... They were older than me this, um, and, uh, I think they're in their 80s now. But at that time, that was the kvutze that was by the Rebbe when I was there. They came back. At that time, kvutzes would come, not on Rosh Hashanah, I think it was on Pesach time. They would go from Pesach to Pesach. They would come back after Pesach. Yosel Aizenbach. Anyway, so, uh, when they were there, there were cer-- I'm not gonna say names, but there were certain-- There were two Bachim of that kvutze. Before they went to the kvutze, they were very, very attached to Reb Shloime Cheym. Almost like, you know, they were never by the Rebbe, so he was like, almost like the, uh, Rebbe. They, they very, very attached. They had a year at R-- They were at R-- Was very respected and

27:03 Speaker 1 this. They, they swallowed every word that he said. They would sit next to Reb Farbrengens and all that. When they... By the kvutze, apparently, they were also very rushed. So when they came back, they, like, they distanced themselves from him completely. A certain group that would sit all the way in the back and never, you know, never, never come to him. Now, it was a Yud Peis Tammuz, after when they came back, it was Yud Peis Tammuz. Reb Shloime Far- Reb Shloime Cheym Farbrengte. And he was, he was very perturbed if you would speak in middle of his Farbrengens, or he would say a Tanyashir every day, seven o'clock. If you would speak, make noise then, that really, that, uh, they-- That disturbed him very much, and he would-- could scream at you and all that. But these guys were all the way in the back, and they were, like, ignoring him and his Farbrengens. And they were speaking amongst each others, and it made a noise 'cause everybody's quiet, and you hear. He understood that they did this especially to demonstrate that, uh, that, uh, uh, that they are ignoring him. First, he didn't say anything. But then it came to a point where, you know, he couldn't take it anymore. So, I mean, it was really noisy, very noisy and very disturbing. He couldn't take it anymore. And he got up, stands up, and he looks at them with tears in his eyes, with tears, crying, crying, and he says, "Vos vilt ir

28:44 Speaker 1 far mi? What do you want from me? How do you expect for me to be a mekushar to the, the Rebbe, to our Rebbe, like to the Friediker Rebbe?" Uh, he meant the Friediker Rebbe, Rav Meindl Tater. He was, uh, he was crying in it. And then suddenly, as he's so, you know, you think he's down, suddenly he, he flips. In a very angry tone, he starts screaming in it. "But one thing I wanna tell you, no matter how much you think you're mekushar to the Rebbe, to our Rebbe, I'm mekushar to him 10 times more than you. With what are you mekushar to him? With vos zeit mekushar tzeim? You learn, you daven, vos? I'm 10 times more mekushar to him than you are." You know, that was really something, you know. Come-- Going back from crying and then That's really something. But coming back to that, you know, since we're talking about, about, uh, Reb Shloime Cheym. Uh, well, actually, I don't know what, what to say first. Should I go back to the letters or talk about Reb Shloime Cheym now? Go back to the letters. Okay. So, like I said, I used to get a letter all the time. At that time, the two years that I was in Kfar Chabad, I was immersed, mamash immersed in Chassidus. I would chazar Maamer every Shabbos almost, those long ones. People tell me today, you know, they would sit there for 45 minutes, and they'd just wait until, until I finish, you know,

30:21 Speaker 1 and all that. And I was really immersed in that. And, uh, when I started learning Chassidus, there, um, Reb Menachem Mendel Feselman was my mashpia, Reb Shloime Cheym's son. He would teach Derech M'susecha. He was an expert in that. And he's told us that Derech M'susecha is the Masechtah Kesubos of, of Chassidus, just like Kesubos has every, every inyan that's in, in Gemara. In the-- You'll find a minuscule in, uh, in, uh, in, in, in Masechtah Kesubos. So, too, every inyan Chassidus you'll find in Derech M'susecha. And since I wanted to, you know, to sell Chassidus and know what I'm talking about, well, to understand Chassidus So I decided, what the heck? So I, I chazzan out, not in public, for myself. So I chazzan out the whole The whole- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He didn't say that. He said Oh. Not the whole Mm-hmm. So I, the whole I, I did about that for myself. And every... I would finish, you know, maybe two Parshiyot. It's very hard. It's not like your regular Ma'amar. So I would finish two Parshiyot- Mm-hmm ... and I would write that to the Rebbe and all that. Okay. So I remember, I, uh, when the, when the, the, the Ma'amar of Ha'Ikbur HaYehudim, I think it was Adar tor, tor, Teuf Reish Chaf Zayin. Yeah. Adar, Adar Teuf Reish Chaf Zayin, that he would send out. At that time, I didn't know. But like, like I told you, I was immersed in sins. I didn't know anything about

32:12 Speaker 1 the outside world. Somebody would tell me then that I would end up in the Knesset or in the United Nations, you know, uh, it, that would be like, you know, you're, you're out of your mind by that time. So I didn't know anything was going on. I just know, you know, that was my whole life. And that's where it started and ended. And, uh, so I remember, uh, uh, the Rebbe sent me a reply enclosed with the Ma'amar of Ha'Ikbur HaYehudim from Teuf Reish Beis Zayin, you know. The Ba'al Musa Ha'Ikbur HaYehudim, that's what So he sent me that Ma'amar. I didn't know at that time that this was like a, a Michdav Klali. I didn't know at that time that it was a Michdav Klali Protel. That other people got it. Yeah, that other people got it. At that time, I thought I was, it was special to me. And I don't remember ever getting anything from then until now. You can give me whatever you want, the biggest things, the biggest, greatest things. I, I, to say the word elated, I was another, ano- another level. You don't know what that did to me. That like put me cloud nine, maybe cloud 20, ninth cloud. It was it was something, you know, a Ma'amar. And of course, that Shabbos I chazzanit, about the whole thing, you know, the rebbe and all the rest. Then later I found out it, there, there was a general Protel, and I would say, "Okay." But still, but

33:46 Speaker 1 that was so... You have no da- idea what that, that may be. Now, I'll tell you an interesting thing. The... It came the Six Day War. Uh, everybody was... It was two weeks before the Six Day War. The Rebbe, Rabbi Yankel Katz was the Mashgiach. He comes into the Beis Medrash, and he gives a clap on Tisch, you know. And he says, "Listen, there's a, there's an order from home, home, home, uh, home, homeland command, some home... Homefront command. There's a Homefront command. It's an order that we have to, uh, dig graves, because there could be, there'll be mass graves, because what, because the Matzav now is Gefaellech. And, uh, uh, anybody who wants to go in Miluim Tzedek to dig the graves, Habber Shos. If you want to s- remain to s- uh, le- learning, then you can re-remain learning." Of course, I remained learning. And that's when... And they, they, th- there were people that went and they dug, dug the graves. I'm telling you this not because... Okay, you'll see why I'm telling you this. So two weeks afterwards, it was Monday morning, eight o'clock, I remember like today. I sent a postcard to my parents. Sent them a postcard, you know, to say, you know, like I would send every week or every two weeks. And I went to the post office at that time to deliver the, to, to drop off the postcard. And I might... It was ter-- eight o'clock. It was after Seyder Sidis. Seyder Sidis was 7:00

35:34 Speaker 1 to 8:00. 8:30 was, uh, you go to Mikveh, and then you daven. Daven was, I think, 8:30 or 9:00 or something like that. But anyway, after Seyder Sidis, I went to the postcard to deliver my postcard. And on the way back, a guy tells me, I remember who it was, he says, "Shamata? Did you hear?" I said, "What, what are you... What, what do I hear?" He said, "It started." I said, "What are you talking about?" "The war." "Oh, oh, the, the war. Wow." So I had that, you know, so really it caught me. So I ran into the, to Beis Medrash. So I came into Medrash. What I see is that everybody's pasting these, these, um, uh, the, the, um, tape on the windows, and in case there's a bomb, the, the glass shouldn't spread out all over. Shatter. Shattered, right. So and then they davened and all that. Now, everybody was... At, at, at that time, you had Unser Lang Yoreh, Rabbi Sholom Beraft was there. He was, you know, the one in Queens now. He was a Bochur at that time. You had, uh, uh, Rabbi Weinberg. You had Nachum Kaplan. You had a lot of Chutznik, I said, from there. And, uh, their parents, of course, were worried about it in, in, in America. And they wrote to the Rebbe, and this is the Ba'al Musa, the well-known telegram that the Rebbe wrote, There's nothing to be afraid of. There, there's nothing to make another person afraid of. The, the, to

37:08 Speaker 1 fright. There's no, no need to fright to somebody else. No. Okay. I also got a letter or a telephone from the, what was it? A letter from my mother saying that, "Come home." And we all got letters, every American citizen got letters from the American me- embassy at that time, that at this and this date, any American citizen here should come to Lod Airport. That time was still Lod, it wasn't yet Ben Gurion Airport, Lod Airport. And there will be, uh, a special, um, uh, planes going to take us back to United States. And my mother very much wanted I should go with them. But I was not, and the others were sort of like they, they were a little nervous, you know? But me, it had no effect whatsoever, and I'll tell you why. So it had no effect whatsoever. I was very, very calm about the whole war. As far as I'm concerned, I knew nothing's gonna happen. Why? I'll tell you why. Uh, the war was in, in, uh, June. Iyar, Iyar, Chodesh Iyar. The order, Chodesh order before that, then what is that? Something like four, four, four months before? Okay. I wrote to the Rebbe that I wanna come to the... I wasn't by the Rebbe for almost two years. I wanna come for Pesach. I wanna come for Pesach and say, "Rebbe, can I leave, you know? Tell Reb Menachem Mendel." And the Rebbe said, uh, told me, and the Rebbe answered like this. He said, "Look, in Chodesh

38:43 Speaker 1 Elul, there's gonna be a charter here." So there's a lot of mides with the charter. Uh, no, first he said... Actually, the letter is printed in the Nikus. I forgot the- Which letter? This letter that I'm talking, talking about, that I, that he answered. He said, I think it's in the 15th of Dalet, I think. And he, uh, and he says to me, "There's first of all, you ask Dan Holon," as you know, whatever Dan Holon says. And then he, the Rebbe says, "There'll be a charter. There's a lo- a lot of mides. There's certain advantages with going with a, uh, charter, so do it then." So since the Rebbe told me to come in Elul, I knew that war is not gonna affect me at all. No- nothing's gonna happen to me. Yeah. So I was very calm, you know? The Rebbe had batul. Yeah. So, you know, I, I also didn't have to have so much bitachon. It was like, "Here, I got a promise from the Rebbe," so what kind of a bitachon I did? I didn't, I didn't think along those vi- ways, you know? Yeah. It, I, uh, bitachon is when you're, you know, you're nervous, when you're concerned, when you're, you're, you're tensed. I wasn't tensed about this. And, uh, so that was that. Now, funny part now. Why did I tell you about the, the, um, the, um, uh, digging graves? You see, like I said before, Reb Shimon Chaim, when he said Tanya, he hated it if

40:11 Speaker 1 you made noise in the middle or talked in the middle. Now, although during the war itself, there was no Seudat Yeshiva, but the seven o'clock Tanya shiur, he wasn't, he wasn't mevater. That- War and- Yeah ... there were no war. Maybe, maybe he wasn't so, uh, middak who was there or not, but he said it, whoever wanted come. So we had a, we had a nice group of people come and listen to it. The other, on the other hand, uh, uh, outside of the door of the room where we were, of the Beis Midrash, if you make noise there, you can also hear it inside. It interrupts it. It, it, it disturbs you inside too. So as he's, he's speaking, he, he was saying the Shir HaTanya, as resembling a yard of both parties went back and forth outside, you know. So, "Dafo and so Rebbe, dafo and so Rebbe, dafo and so Rebbe, you have to go to the Rebbe." And that was bothering him. He didn't know where the wo- wars come, the noise was coming from. It bothered him. After a while, he said, "Who's making the noise? G- go and, go and, and, um, and, uh, go, g- go bury your- bury yourselves in the pits that you, that, that you, that you made, that you-" Yeah. That was very that was so funny. Okay. Then in Tov Shin, then Wednesday, the news came, "Our castle will be our day," that they captured the castle. So I remember all the Yerushalmi

41:49 Speaker 1 boys that were with us, they started dancing. They were so happy, you know? Mm-hmm. Shlomo Chaim came in and he's gave it over the head and he said, "What are you dancing about? What's there to dance? You're still in the middle of the war. Still in the middle of the war. Yeah. That was insane. That's, that's the Parsha. So we finished the Parsha of, uh, of, uh, Russia and Yichus Chabad. Okay. So you went back to New York as Yeshivat Shaalvim. So I went back to- Whatever, and then Elul. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, yeah. I went into Yefis Yes. I went into Yefis Yes when I remember-- And that was the first time, that was the first time that I was there since Tov Shin Elul, since I got Bava Satreda. In other words, the Rebbe didn't see me for a year and a half already. And how old are you now? I'm old. Eighteen, I think, 19. Something like that. So, and the Rebbe didn't see me since then, and that's when he, you know, you have to make, uh, Shehecheyanu. So I re- I remember like this. We went into Yefis Yes, I went into Yefis Yes. Well, and then you still can go in. It wasn't Rutki Yefis Yes like later on. That you still, you know, every, every family or every person, individual went in by, by himself. So what I remember is that He, um... When I opened the door, and I walked in, the Rebbe was in the middle

43:30 Speaker 1 of putting away, uh, you know, like an envelope in, in his drawer here. He was, he was sort of like bent down like this. And, uh, w- And as he was doing this, he saw me. He didn't say it loud, but I, I mean, I, I could hear him. I could hear him say, he put it in, uh, "Shalom aleichem" like, like this, "Shalom aleichem, HaRav Shmuel." He said it like this. And then I, you know, I went in, I gave my letter. That letter, I wrote something that I had that was bothering me about something what, w-something about with my father. It was bothering me something. And, uh, the Rebbe told me, he says, uh, "Look, there's a difference between a Yeshivah bocher and, you know, some baal habos. A baal habos is more, you know, there's the, like, there's the Shvatim and there's Yosef. Yosef," and he told me the, the known, uh, what's of Siddur is that Yosef was even on the Shomrei Tehilim, even when he was in, in Olam HaZe, in the middle of the real halabala, w-where he still, it didn't affect him. Whereas the, um, Shvatim, they were ro'ey tza'in. They were isolated from the world because they could be affected by that. I mean, so, so like, told me kind of it's a difference in all that. Now, I- There was a difference. There's a difference between a Yeshivah bocher and a baal eysek. Then, and then he tells me to look in Toras Chaim, something in

45:08 Speaker 1 Parashat Shemos, something about that. And okay, that was that. So what does that have to do with your father? He's a baal eysek. He's Yeshivah bocher. He was a baal eysek at that time. Yeah, yeah. And there were certain things that, you know, that I think he should have... That, you know, it, it, it bothered me. And, uh, when I spoke to him about it, he sort of like, uh, ignored it. So I just vented or, or, uh, you know, I sh- I, I shared it to the Rebbe, you know. The Rebbe was basically saying, "Not- He calmed me down. He calmed me down. The Rebbe was basically saying not to meddle in your father's affairs. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. I went back. And then finally, you know, after a year, I went back. I came back in Tav Shin Chaf Ches. Tav Shin Chaf Ches. Now, again, remember, I'm coming back from Chabad. I'm with Chabad. I don't know, m-maybe I overdid it. I didn't sleep and all that, so I was very schwach. I was unable to go on, on, uh, Merkos L'Inyas. I called my chaverim. At that time, it was summer. I came back in the summer. You're saying you didn't, you didn't meet the, the bar of Merkos L'Inyas 'cause you weren't- Right. -present. Right. So I, I mean, you know, I... And I had a r- And I just came back, you know, overseas and all that. So, um, but I had to do something. And my

46:32 Speaker 1 head then was, you know, was, wasn't like in concentration. My father had a, uh, a friend in Ezras Torah. Ezras Torah, you know, the charity organization. What is Ezras Torah? What is that? Ezras Torah. You never heard of Ezras Torah? Ezras Torah is, uh, the charity organizations that helps, that helps, uh, a tzedakah organization that helps young guys or people in need with money for a shidduch, you know. They would come to the... It's like a gemach, but it's more than a gemach. So who, who, who comes there? It's more than a gemach. It came, it was, uh, it was very famous. Actually, that was the only gemach that they used to make an appeal for in, in seven seventy. There was no other institution outside- Outside Lubavitch. -Chabad, outside Chabad institutions, the, outside Lubavitch that, that they made an appeal for. Here that they made an appeal. Anyway- Who was running it? Uh, Re-Re-Rabbi Yosef Yoel Hankin. He was a big poysik before Reb Moshe. He was the Ra-Rav of... He was the Moetzetas of America before Reb Moshe. And he was very, very, you know, all the shailas came to him. He was a gevaldige figure. And, uh, Ezras Torah actually was founded in nineteen oh two. No, E-Ezras Torah was founded by Agudas Harabonim. Agudas Harabonim, that was his baby. Ezras Torah was his baby. Every, Ezras Torah, Ezras, Ez- Agudas Harabonim was founded in nineteen oh two, the year the Rebbe was born. And a year later, they opened up this

48:15 Speaker 1 charity and this gemach or this tzedakah, where you didn't have to give back the money, uh, for Talmidei Chachamim only. Mainly f- mainly for Talmidei Chachamim who sat and learned. That's why it's called Ezras Torah. Ezras Torah, yeah. And, uh, I didn't know at the time. So, so anyway, so this, they're on the East Side. There's a- So you got a job, you got a job at Ezras Torah for the summer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Listen. So I'm in the, I'm there, and Agudas Harabonim is, they, when Agudas Harabonim came to America, they, Ezras Torah came along with them. And wherever, uh, uh, the, w-whatever location, uh, Agudas Harabonim would be, Ezras Torah would be there too. So in other words, when they came, they were on Broadway the first time in the thirties, the 1930s when they came. So Ezras Torah was also on the second floor and the first floor. Agudas Harabonim was either on the first floor, and they would be on the second floor in the same building. In the Lower East Side. Yeah. But then later, they, he went to the Lower East Side to East Broadway. At first they were on Broadway. Oh. Then they went to East Broadway, 235 East Broadway. And Ezras Torah was upstairs, and Agudas Harabonim was downstairs. Yeah. At that time, the menahal of Agudas, of Ezras Torah, one of the menahal, there were two of them. One of them was Rabbi Margolin, father of the Margolins, the shliach in Carolina, one in

49:41 Speaker 1 Eretz Yisroel, you know. Virginia. Levi in Virginia, yeah. So, uh, uh, and my father knew him very well, very friendly. Says, "Maybe you have a part-time job for my, for my son," and all that. Says, "Yeah, he can come." So my, my, my thing would be I would sit there, and they, they got requests mainly from Eretz Yisroel. All the gedolim, all the rosh yeshivas, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm not gonna say names. Rosh yeshivas and, and all the, you know, Talmidei Chachamim or not Talmidei Chachamim from Mea She'arim, from Bnei Brak, from all over Israel, uh, requesting assistance for either they, they just made a shidduch they need for an apartment, you know, to help, uh, make a chasuna, whatever. And then the meeting with-- There would be a meeting, Bamse Menahalim, the officers, and they would take the, the list of, uh, the requests, and, uh, they would decide how much to give. They would... Then, then I came to implement it. They gave it to me. I would have to write down the checks and then record it also. At that time, there were no computers, so everything was on index, you know, the index cards like at one time. I would record there how much we... That was my job, the implementation of that.

50:54 Speaker 3 We enter the month of Tishrei and prepare for the new year. There's an essential campaign for every single one of us to make sure is marked off on their checklist, and that is Keren Hashanah. On Shabbos Bereishis, Taf Shin Yud Daled, the Rebbe founded Keren Hashanah under Machane Israel to ensure that every single Yid has the zechus of giving tzedakah every single day. The Rebbe explained that Tishrei is a chedes haklali. It's the general month that sets the tone for the entire year, and by securing our daily tzedakah right at the beginning, we will be able to draw down continuous berachos for the rest of the year. There's a few points to Keren Hashanah. First of all, it's for the entire family. The Rebbe urged that every single person should contribute for their family, men, women, and children, so that everyone in the family is covered. And the idea is that it's calculated by the days of the year. You give a set amount corresponding to the numbers of days of the year, whether it's a dollar a day, fifty cents a day, or eighteen cents a day. It's multiplied by the days of the year, and especially in a year like this year, which is a leap year, you have to calculate the days of the year for a leap year. And it's a daily thing. Through Machane Israel, the money is physically dispersed on your behalf twice a day, before Shacharis and before Mincha, and before Shabbos and Yom Tov, and when it's

52:21 Speaker 3 actually physically given. The Rebbe encouraged everyone to take care of this as early as possible before Rosh Hashanah, so the year starts with this, with the complete zechus. Take a minute right now, calculate the number of days of this year, count up your family members, and head over to mykerenhashanah.com. That's M-Y-K-E-R-E-N-H-A-S-H-A-N-A.com to secure your daily tzedakah and continuous berachos for the entire year to come.

52:53 Speaker 1 Again, I'm coming to Chabad, and, and I'm thrust here into... This was the real headquarters of the Misnagdim.

53:06 Speaker 3 It was unfriendly territory.

53:08 Speaker 1 Yeah. And I was aware of that. When I came here, I started feeling the arrows. First of all, I, uh, when I came here, the people that saw I was a, a, a Lubavitcher, they met... They saw I was, you know, the way I was dressed and all that, the way I spoke, they started giving me jabs, and they started... Now, and I had to answer. They started saying, making fun of the Rebbe, this and other things, you know. And to me, this was a shock. This was the first time that I hear these things and all that, and I was sort of like, you know, it's, it's, it's Mamash Ztreizelt in gantzen. And I, uh, I didn't know, uh, s-s-so, uh, I wrote to the Rebbe and I said, "This, I can't take it anymore. Um, um, um, I have to go because if I'm going to answer them, it'll be machlokes. My nature is not machlokes. If I don't answer, then shtike kedora. So I'd rather you know me." So the Rebbe answered to me. He said, "Given she'nistavinu al y'dei, given she'nistavinu mi'srachok michshach machlokes, since we are commanded to distance ourselves from any machlokes. So yam shichve yishkach. Remain and keep quiet." So once I get the, uh, the confirmation from the Rebbe that, you know, I can stay there, if I be quiet, it's not shtike kedora if the Rebbe told me that to do it. It's, it's not... So I, uh, I remain. Okay, I remain. Now, then listen

54:48 Speaker 1 to this story. The president of, of, uh, of, uh, of, uh, of Ezras Torah, Rav Henkin was the Menahal. The president of, of Ezras Torah was a very Rav Rif. He was, he was Naftali Zvi Yehuda Rif. He was a grandchild of the Netziv. He was named after him. He was a big Goy, Talmid Chacham. He was a Rav. He was a Rav in Camden, New Jersey. And he had a golden heart. He had a very good heart. And he was already in his eighties, and he was-- And it-- And he liked me very much because he would always come, and he would come either once a week or once in a month with a whole reshimah, a whole list of people that he wants, that people came to him to ask for assistance, and he wants to help, so he, he tells me to, you know, to, to implement this assistance for them. So he would come every time with a reshimah, and I would do it for him. He loved me very much because he even came to the chasunah when in '77. So-

56:01 Speaker 3 Your chasid

56:02 Speaker 1 ... yeah. And he, and he, uh, he loved me very much. And he, uh, because I was efficient, s-speed, exactly what he wanted, I did. One time, this was I think in Davis, I would might, I would be there from nine to five. So one time, I was there, he came four thirty, and it was the first time that I would stay over when he comes, you know, if I have to stay till five thirty or six. For him, I didn't. But that particular day, I don't remember what it was. Maybe, maybe it was after the... It was something in '77, I think the rebbe was gonna die then after the, the Rebbetzin Chana passing. Or well, well, see, there was some kind of a thing that summer Sunday I very much didn't wanna miss. So when it came five o'clock, I said to Rav Rif, I said to him: "Listen, I, I almost finished. I finished half, but, uh, let me... I, I'm sort of like in a rush now. I'll finish this tomorrow morning." So he says: "Where, where are you rushing to?" And he says to me: "Make believe I'm the rebbe. If the rebbe would tell you to this, you would also rush," and all that. Now, again, I, if I know now, I wouldn't react that like. If I would've known then how this would affect him, he was already an older man. And so he, a-and I said it between miss because this was my life, you know, this

57:40 Speaker 1 was the way I thought. And I said: "The reb- You're the rebbe? Uh, I mean, the rebbe me resembling." Wow. He, he exploded, and he says, he got up and he was, I mean, was shaking. I was afraid for him. I thought he was gonna, gonna... "Wha, wha, wha, wha, what do you mean? Did you ever hear me? Do you, you know I go, I know gunshots? Tell me any place, I'll tell you gunshots," and all that. Then I looked at him, and I reminded myself of this guy, you know, the long letter, you know with the, you know-

58:16 Speaker 3 Yeah, the parish in Lang-

58:17 Speaker 1 And I said-

58:17 Speaker 3 Langleyville

58:17 Speaker 1 ... and I said: "Okay, okay, okay, I'll stay, I'll stay, I'll stay." I mean, I probably had a 100 times, you know. So, uh-

58:24 Speaker 3 So you got a lot of exposure to the world.

58:27 Speaker 1 Oh, oh yeah. Yeah, that was really exposure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, okay, so I stayed over and I did him a favor and, you know, at the end, he came to... We, we stayed friends, and he came to my chasid, he got a, he got a brocha. And, uh, 'cause these... And, uh, during this, this chasid, the Rosh Hag, was upstairs looking down, down on him from his window, seeing all the misnaggedim that came at that time. Okay. Now, there's one interesting that happened there that I remember. One of my jobs as a storer was like this also. As a storer, I had a radio program every, every Motzei Shabbos, WVD, right after or before Rabbi Weinreich's Tanya. It's either after, I really don't remember. It's either after or, or before. And my job was-

59:19 Speaker 3 What was the program?

59:20 Speaker 1 The program was to draw funds for as a storer. You had a, every day, every Motzei Shabbos, you had a different rav come there to speak on behalf of as a storer and ask people to donate, you know. So my job would be that during the week, to go to the person that's gonna speak on Motzei Shabbos, tape him, tape him. And it could be modern Orthodox rabbis, it could be big Rabbonim, the Rabbonim or whatever, you know, whoever they decided to speak that was a-available, available for that, uh, Motzei Shabbos.

59:55 Speaker 3 It was in Yiddish?

59:57 Speaker 1 In Yiddish, yeah. In all-

59:58 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

59:58 Speaker 1 ... yeah, in Yiddish. Yes. Now, I would tape them. My job was to tape them and take the tape to Mr. Basenko, who was the director there, the, this guy.

1:00:10 Speaker 3 Basenko.

1:00:10 Speaker 1 Yeah. In WVD, to go down to the radio in WVD and give it to him, and that's it. Later on... Okay. So at one time, I came to this Rav Modern Orthodox rabbi from a Young Israel, and he started speaking, and he... Very nicely about his story, and she said... I don't remember which story he said or whatever he said, but then he said like this, he said: "And since now we're in a time of Gesheftig Gola." Yeah. Gesheftig Gola. Now, when I heard that, don't forget, just a couple of weeks before that, there's a farbrengen where the rebbe says, when you say Gesheftig Gola, you know people are dying in, in Eretz Yisrael because of, you know, this thing, Gesheftig Gola, this-

1:01:03 Speaker 3 Saying, saying that the Medina is Gesheftig Gola

1:01:06 Speaker 1 ... is Gesheftig Gola.

1:01:06 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:01:07 Speaker 1 It's a and you're saying that this is Gesheftig Gola, you know. And now I have to bring this to the masses. So it's like, you know, like the, the, the when they told me to make a Tanas for Yom Kippur when the rebbe was

1:01:27 Speaker 3 They, they won't have to get the-

1:01:29 Speaker 1 But it has to go through me. Now, how can I bring a thing like this when the rebbe says that this is... So I went to, uh, there were two, there were two, uh, Menahem, Menachem It was Rabbi Margolin. There was a-another one, the Vadiker, also, uh, alter year, very, you know, big Talmid Chacham, uh, who, uh, his name was Rabbi Reginsky. Now, these people, Rabbi Margolin or this or Rabbi Reginsky, they never held about this. It's Gesheftig Gola. They didn't hold it as Gesheftig Gola So I went to him and I said, "Listen, this guy is saying it's halachah deGeula. I can't put this in." "You wanna put this in?" I said, "As a story, he's gonna say that it's halachah deGeula. You want, as a story, should say, it's, uh, you're d-claiming the, declaring it's, uh, it's halachah deGeula?" So he says, "Listen, uh, put it in. What do you care? Just put it in." So I said, "Oh, no, I'm not gonna put this in." So I didn't tell anybody. Didn't tell anybody. And I figured like this, I know how to splice, you know. I know how to splice tapes. So I listened to the tape, and I said-

1:02:36 Speaker 3 Before, before editing, you had to splice it.

1:02:37 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, usually I don't edit. I just give it in the way it was. But this time, I decided I'm gonna splice it. And, uh... No. Oh, 'cause I remember. Oh, oh, oh. 'Cause I remember when he said this, I told him, "Well, w-when the rabbi, the, the rabbi who, who said it's halachah deGeula," I said, "How can you say it's halachah deGeula?" And he started arguing with me. He says, "If you don't put it in, then don't, don't put in anything. Now, I want you to... It's halachah deGeula," and he was adamant about it. Now, so that's why I went to Rabbi Riginsky and, and he said, "Listen, if he said, you know, eh, overlook it." But I couldn't overlook it. So I said to myself, "What am I gonna do here?" So I said, "I figured I'm gonna splice it." And in case this guy, first of all, it'll be acharei ma'aseh. So even if he, you know, he's, gets angry, it's already acharei ma'aseh. Everybody heard the tape. Everybody heard his, you know, his, his, his appeal. But then I will always say there was some kind of garble. It was garble something. I would always... He probably would know that w- that I did it, uh, on purpose, but I didn't care. I spliced it in, and when it came to that part, halachah deGeula, I just took it out. Took it out. It wasn't mentioned at all. Uh, funny thing is, he never called, uh,

1:03:53 Speaker 1 he never called, you know, protesting and then-

1:03:56 Speaker 3 So it went through.

1:03:57 Speaker 1 Yeah. It went through. Okay. So I was there from... So then again, I want to, I want to, uh, uh, be like everybody else, like all my chaverim. Uh, learning seventy-seventy, going shlichas or whatever it is, and suddenly, I'm thrust into this place, and the rabbi tells me, "Stay here." Now-

1:04:22 Speaker 3 After the summer, you asked the rabbi-

1:04:24 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So stay-

1:04:25 Speaker 3 The rabbi told you to stay.

1:04:26 Speaker 1 Stay there. Yeah. Now, this was not a... I didn't consider this a shlichas, because to me, a shlichas was, you know, Rabbi Chodikov, you know, American shlichas. It all goes through a certain procedure. There was no procedure here.

1:04:37 Speaker 3 Right.

1:04:38 Speaker 1 So this is all something, you know, like I never f- I never, uh, uh, uh, consider myself a shliach. Now the-

1:04:45 Speaker 3 And you should have been.

1:04:45 Speaker 1 I thought that you go to Eretz Yisrael and all that. To me, a shliach was, you go to Eretz Yisrael, you have to, like it was like we put in the beginning on all these elderly shluchim that, that went there so much, uh, Shmotkin and all the, and, and, and Rabbi Melikov, uh, Rabbi Semtov, they all go and they, some of them Davened, you know, they had to sow and, and plow and, and, and, uh, make something, you know. And, uh, you know, I didn't consider myself a shliach. Okay? But I, the rabbi told me to stay, so I stay. But it alw-always bothered me, you know. I... So, okay. So I'm there. Now, uh, the, um, those years, Rav Henkin became a sagan or Rav Henkin, that banai love as a story, was already, he couldn't see well. I would, we'd, I would have to go to him once or tw- two days to get checks signed. He still si-signed checks. So, uh, the first, first three hours in the morning when his head was still, you know, he was already on b-bed Tishim, but his head was still sharp. His grandson, who was Yehuda Henkin. Yehuda Henkin later became a rav in Beit Shean here, in, in Beit Shean, in Israel. And he, uh, became a big, uh, like a, a rav among the, among the Kipot Srugim, you know. You know, not the modern, not the Mizrachi, the, the, the national religious, uh, community.

1:06:23 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:06:27 Speaker 1 And I remember Rav Henkin once asked me, he said, "Listen," he wants to become a, a rav in Beit Shean, and Rabbi Goren was chief rabbi at that time, and you need a semikhah for, you need a, some kind of amlotzer, you know, uh, recommendation from Rav Tzagol. So he wants from me for... He figured that if Rav Henkin would see, if Rav Goren would see from, a letter from Henkin recommending him, it would go smooth. So I remember he dictated me a letter to, to Rabbi Goren. He very much held Rabbi Goren, you should know, 'cause he, he was a big, a big talmid chacham because he, Rabbi Goren, when he was a bocher, I think, or a younger man, he came to America to show, to get me, uh, haskomas for his Sefer. He made a Sefer on Kodshim at a very young age, a very lamdish Sefer. And Rav Henkin, well, the person he came was Rav Henkin. At that time, he was the rav, you know, the, the main rav in, uh, in America. And he was, Rav Henkin was very, Rav Mizrachi was very impressed from his lamdis. So he always held him for a big talmid chacham. Uh, that's why he was a little reluctant to go out against him when there was the whole story with the Mamzerim, you know, with the-

1:07:37 Speaker 3 Right. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, over there. Yeah. Ach, achas. Yeah.

1:07:41 Speaker 1 Okay. Okay. So he, so at the first year when I was there, Rav Henkin, his son, Yehuda Henkin, used to learn with him. Then he became a chasun, and they moved to Eretz Yisrael. They moved to Eretz Yisrael. Rav Henkin was left without somebody learning with him. So I was asked to come every morning- Before I come to yeshiva, I used to come to yeshiva at nine, ten. Instead of coming to yeshiva, go straight to him, sit with him for two or three hours, learn with him. And I must tell you that most of my learning, I mean, we didn't... I went through Gan Shas in Yanki with him. In Yanki.

1:08:28 Speaker 3 In Yanki?

1:08:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, because, you know, his head was-- couldn't take pilpul and back and forth. And aloha. And he was so fluent. He was such a good that whatever I said, and I made a mistake, you know, in a posek. So he would correct me. And I would say that was really sh- I had really shmuess at that time. Now, an interesting maise with him and me, and this was already recorded in other places also, since I'm talking to you now about all this, I'll tell it to you. I once came into him, and, uh, he, uh, he says to me, "Listen, I want you-- I wanna write an article in HaParades." You know, you heard of HaParades, a biblical journal.

1:09:16 Speaker 3 That was, uh, Rabbi Elberg's-

1:09:18 Speaker 1 Simcha Elberg's, yeah, yeah.

1:09:19 Speaker 3 Publication.

1:09:20 Speaker 1 I wanna write, I wanna write an article in HaParades. And he says, "I'll dictate it to you." And he starts dictating. I heard and I saw there is a very bad custom in the yeshivas where they eat before the Kidush. That's before Shemoneh Esreh, right after, you know, the, after, uh

1:09:49 Speaker 3 they're eating before Kidush.

1:09:50 Speaker 1 Yes. Right. They eat before Kidush. And he starts saying like this: "The reason that they make Kiddush and they eat before Kidush is, is, is because they're afraid that, they're afraid that, uh, they'll be fasting in the month of fast. And, uh, that's one of the reasons that they're doing it." "But," he says, "if they'll do it after Kidush, you're not allowed to talk out." So he says like th-- So he wrote like this. I'm telling you the gist of it. He says, he says, "If you eat before Kidush, Kidush is a is is ."

1:10:35 Speaker 3 It's a

1:10:37 Speaker 1 Kidush, the afterwards is not . So it's better to talk out, make Kiddush, whatever you wanna do after Kidush then, then, then talk, then being and

1:10:59 Speaker 3 And eating before

1:11:01 Speaker 1 You don't eat before. It's an but this is not 'cause first you wanna make Kiddush and then you eat Okay. And that thing went in, in, in the HaParades. Two weeks passed by. A letter arrives from Rabbi Menachem Gifter from Yeshivas Telz. And the letter is dated, is addressed to Rabbi Henkin, at the bottom it says, "Confidential." And since I was his eyes, I took off, I was I took off, I read it to him. And he starts off there like this. I was shocked to see it. to see how his pen deviated something. Uh, saying that how could you say how could you slander the yeshivas that it's a to eat before Kidush? And, and, and of course, you know that all the yeshivas do it, and you're, you're slandering them. And all the did it. Zalman Melzer, Rav Kotler, and this guy. And, you know, he-

1:12:08 Speaker 3 Oh, so, uh, uh, Menachem Gifter was saying that-

1:12:11 Speaker 1 Yeah, he was saying, how could you... He was saying, Rabbi-

1:12:12 Speaker 3 It's true, but this is, this is the that's done.

1:12:15 Speaker 1 Yeah, this is the that everybody did, and you're coming out slandering it, and you that all the did it and all. They slander-- But I remember a whole list. I remember Kotler was one of them and all that. So... And I read it to him. Could be I wouldn't have read, read it to him. He was already ninety, and he was very emotional when he heard that. It got him all... He was all so worked up. It really shook him up. And he said, "Write back to him. They left me. I, I-- Like I know more than him, and I know better than him. And this is-- And I have, I have There was, uh, there was a big over there between two Amoraim. And one Amora said, "They gave me the authority to say so."

1:13:10 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:13:10 Speaker 1 "So you have to, you have to submit to what I'm saying." And that's what he's telling him. And then I get a letter. He gets-- comes back with a letter a week or two weeks later, and he says, a six-page letter, and he says, "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't wanna be I just want to take up for, for my, the yeshi-- for the... I just want to take up for the covenant of the yeshivas and the rabbonim." And then he goes into a whole pilpul, you know, with-- That he, I, I spoke it over with the mashgiach Rabbi Stein in, in, in Telz, and it goes on there. But then I wanted to know, and I was very, you know, I, I, I was very interested in, uh, in-- He asked me, uh, uh... No, I said to him, I said, "Rabbi Henkin, but he mentions here all these gedolim, Kotler, and all, all that." So he says, so he says, he firstly thought I was on his-- their side. I was taking their side. So he said, "I said, "Whoever heard of such a thing?" So it calmed him down. He was very happy. Then he says to me, he says, "Rabbi Levine, I wanna tell you something. I wanna tell you something." There was a rav here on this side. His name was Rabbi Goldberg, I think. He once came to me with a shayla if this chazon in the middle of Shemoneh Esreh, Chazarat Hashatz, the they, they

1:14:38 Speaker 1 sing a lot, and they would-- For a minute, they would say one word, uh, and like, "You know, about this Shemoneh Esreh. And is it considered a hefsek or not? So I told him it's a hefsek. Two weeks later, he comes back to me. He says he was Shabbos in Lakewood, and he spoke to Aharon Kotler, and he told him-

1:14:58 Speaker 3 Henkin was in Lakewood?

1:14:59 Speaker 1 No. This is the rav.

1:15:01 Speaker 3 Oh, the rav Goldberg.

1:15:01 Speaker 1 He spoke to, asked Henkin, uh, asked Rabbi Henkin whether it's a hefsek. Rabbi Henkin told him it's a hefsek. This rav was in Lakewood. He asked the same shayla to Aharon Kotler. And, uh, he told him-- And he comes back to Rav Henkin and he says, "I spoke with him, and he's told me it's not Hepsek." So he, so I told him... So, so I, so, so he tells me like this. So, so, so if he tells me... So Rav Henkin tells me like this: "You should know, Rav Aharon Kotler maybe he knew a lot of pilpul. When it comes to halacha, it's just Samir." And he implied that if Rav Aharon Kotler would know that I asked it before tekias, he would also ask. He would also ask. And, uh, okay, that was that. He would, uh, Reb Moshe Feinstein would come every Rosh Hashanah. He would always come to wish Rav Henkin a shana tova, shana tova. It was at the same, east side, a couple of blocks away. And but-

1:16:09 Speaker 3 And he was in charge of the Agudas Harabonim?

1:16:12 Speaker 1 Huh? What?

1:16:12 Speaker 3 Rav Henkin was in charge of the Agudas Harabonim?

1:16:14 Speaker 1 Rav Henkin was in charge of Eser Sura. He was a member of Agudas Harabonim.

1:16:17 Speaker 3 Oh.

1:16:18 Speaker 1 A kosher member.

1:16:18 Speaker 3 I misunderstood.

1:16:19 Speaker 1 A kosher member.

1:16:20 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:16:20 Speaker 1 But, but Reb Moshe was the president. Now, I remember, and he was so adamant about this, Re- Rav Henkin, about eating before tekias, that in the luchas, in the luach of Eser Sura, the yearly luach, there's always, when it comes to Rosh Hashanah, it tells you the din of Rosh Hashanah. You have a parenthesis that Rav Henkin was against it. Rav Henkin was against eating before tekias. Okay. But he was always with that. That was his, like his baby. You know, that was his thing. Why am I telling you this? 'Cause I remember Rabbi Zoltians. So like, you know, Rav Zolti, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem at that time, once came, once came to America to sound the alarm that Gorin is gonna become the chief rabbi. It was that time. And it's terrible if he come, becomes 'cause he's like a Rav Mitam, and he's Mizrachi type, you know. And we have to do everything. We have to protest that he's not supposed to be. So he came to meet with Rav Henkin about this. And Rav Henkin, I was there at the time, and he says... And as soon as he came, uh, came, so I introduced myself. "Rav Henkin, this is Rav Zolti. He's the chief rabbi of Jerusalem." When he heard that, he says, "Oh, very good." Rav Henkin said, "Good." He says to, he said to Zolti. Now, Zolti thought he's gonna speak to him about Gorin. Says, "You should know when you eat before tekias, the Rosh Hashanah, it's..."

1:17:55 Speaker 1 You have, you have water in your eyes. This was-

1:17:58 Speaker 3 So this is a big deal.

1:17:59 Speaker 1 Yeah, this was a-

1:18:00 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:18:00 Speaker 1 He was, you know, he didn't expect this. What? You know, what's he talking about? That was-

1:18:07 Speaker 3 Right

1:18:07 Speaker 1 ... very interesting. Okay. So, so I'm with him. I'm with Rav Henkin, 1970-

1:18:15 Speaker 3 Are you interacting with, with the Rebbe at this time? Like, what's going on with the Rebbe?

1:18:19 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you something. Yeah, yeah. You just mentioned it. Okay. Yeah. Now I'm gonna tell you the... This is, I would say, the, the highlight. This was the highlight of my being with Rav Henkin and the Rebbe. This is setlach, they're printed already in in the back. Uh, Rav Henkin would always listen on Shabbos on the radio to these shows, you know, to Eser Sura, to Rav Teitz, and mainly to Rav Weinreich. He would also always listen to Rav Weinreich's Taanis year. In those days, the Rebbe was very, you know... Every farbrengen, he would speak against Miyudi, and the Mafdal have to go out of the... National Religious Party should go out of the government because them being in the government-

1:19:11 Speaker 3 Because of Miyudi.

1:19:12 Speaker 1 Miyudi, right. They're in the government, they're upholding a government that sanctions, uh, a Reform conversion. And he always spoke about it. And every-- A-after Rav Weinreich would give over the Taanis year, he would take five, 10 minutes to give over an excerpt of the farbrengen, the, you know, that, uh, couple hours before on Shabbos. And he would always bring down this thing with Miyudi, and the Rebbe's ma-- The Rebbe's demanded they, they leave the coalition. One day I come in, and Rav Henkin says, "I wanna write the Rebbe something. And I wanna write him that I think he's making a mistake by demanding they should go out from the government because, look, they'll never amend the law because there's somebody, uh, a dominant figure in the government, in the coalition now, whose son is, or his wife, whose son is married to a goya. So once he amends this law, he's going against his own family. So he's not gonna, he's never gonna allow it. That's number one."

1:20:25 Speaker 3 Practically.

1:20:26 Speaker 1 Pra-- Yeah. Number two, uh, if they go out, I mean, what Yiddish, what, uh, the, they're upholding Yiddishkeit, you know. Whatever Yiddishkeit we have is gonna be, you know, they, they, uh, it's, they're upholding it. They're, they maintaining it. So, and he says, "So I think the Rebbe should stop, you know. It's, it's not right that the, what the Rebbe's, uh, demanding from them." I said to myself, "Wow, can I write the Rebbe a letter like this? What, what, what, what is this?" But then I've said to myself, "Look, I see Rav Henkin's very adamant about it. If I'm not gonna do it, somebody else is gonna do it." So what the heck, you know? Let him, let him re-- Uh, uh, as long-- I'll write it. I'll be the typewriter. As long as he signs it, who cares, you know? So he signs, I'll, I'll do my job, and, uh, I'll give it to the Rebbe. I didn't do it. He, he did. I was just a typewriter. So and I figured, you know, I forgot about it. I didn't know. I didn't think the Rebbe's gonna, gonna pay any attention to it. So I didn't... And, you know, I didn't even go... And we usually, a lot of letters that I gave, and I told Binyomin Klein, I said, "Listen, this is . This is very... I want you to... The Rebbe must see this immediately," and all this. Here I just put it down, whatever, wherever it goes, you know. I just

1:21:45 Speaker 1 went in, put it down, and figured and all that. It was ten o'clock in the morning. I think it was on a Thursday. Yeah. Was it Thursday? Yeah, Thursday. Thursday, it's ten o'clock in the morning, and figured sheget zechus. I go to my... Around one o'clock or twelve o'clock, I had to ask Binyomin something about a certain thing. And, you know, and I forgot about this whole thing with Rav Henkin. And I ca-ca- I called him up about it, and as soon as he picks up the phone, he says, "It was me." He says, "Where are you? I'm, I'm, I'm searching for you already for two hours. You know you got an answer immediately from the Rebbe." And the Rebbe says, and the Rebbe, and, and that, that answer there, you'll see, you'll see it in the, in the, in the... There were three answers here because I gave out to Rav Henkin this answer. Rav Henkin, uh, res- uh, reacted to it. I told the Rebbe what he reacted. The Rebbe answered it again, and then he reacted it again. The Rebbe again, something. And these three times when the Rebbe answers is printed already as a setlach in, I think, in Chof Ches. I'm not sure. I'll find out. I'll let you know if you really wanna know. So the Rebbe writes about the, the first one where he says there's a dominant figure. So he says, "You probably mean Ben-Gurion." Ben-Gurion-

1:23:09 Speaker 3 The Rebbe says this?

1:23:10 Speaker 1 Yeah, the Re-- In the, in the letter. He shows, "You're talking about Ben-Gurion." Rebbe says, "You're probably talking about Ben-Gurion," because his son, Ben-Gurion's son, was married to a goya. Okay? "So you're talking about him. So you should know that this, this w- the, the, the, the law returned. The me'u, the problem arose, erupted after he was prime minister. He wasn't in the government then." So in Golda Meir's time. This is after he was prime minister. And when he was prime minister, it was gir, it was halacha. It was a proper gir. So it has nothing to do with him. Then the Rebbe says, "By them being in the government, every time they're in the government, they're-

1:23:56 Speaker 3 The Hapoel party.

1:23:57 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, the Hapoel party. They're holding up. They're maintaining them. So I got this letter. I got the answer from the Rebbe on Thursday, twelve o'clock. I figured like this, Friday, I don't go in. The next time I'll see him is Sunday. To leave over an answer for the Rebbe from Thursday to Sunday to somebody, you can't do that. If Rebbe answers to somebody, you have to give it to him immediately. So I figured seven o'clock in the evening, I went down there with a friend of mine. He's, uh, uh, Rabbi Gurwitz next to Parkway. And we went down because his shver came from the same city as Rav Henkin. Rav Henkin came from Klimovitch.

1:24:43 Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

1:24:43 Speaker 1 And his shver, Rav Matisyahu Rifkin, also was from Klimovitch. So I took him down there with me, so he should, he should see he's a friendly, friendly person. We came seven o'clock in the evening. I came in there, and I tell him the answer. And, uh, here's the answer. He says, "No, it's not the answer." And he's, he sort of... I see he's disturbed. He's going back, you know, like, you know. And then a chapsich. Maybe he doesn't wanna speak in front of Rabbi Gurwitz, so I asked him to wait in the car. When he went out, I said to him, "This is what the Rebbe says about Ben-Gurion, is this..." So he says, "I didn't mean Ben-Gurion." So I said, "Who'd you mean?" So he says, he starts saying, um, uh, um, um, um. So I said, I, I said, I, "You mean Abe Eben?" So he says, "Yeah, Abe Eben. Yeah, that's who it is, Abe Eben." So, okay. So I went out, and I said goodbye and all that. I went back to the Rebbe, and then this is what he said. Then the Rebbe writes back another letter to him with a bigger, uh, a much larger letter. You'll see it. The setlach is bigger than the first one. And he says, "Abe Eben." Uh, the Rebbe goes... So you take a look over there, and the Rebbe tells him it's, it's all origin. "Abe Eben, his wife is the sister of the daughter-in-law of Rabbi Herzog, the chief rabbi. Uh,

1:26:05 Speaker 1 he has nothing to do with me, with the, with the coalition, with the government. He's, he's a ,'" he says, uh, "'foreign minister. So you hear him. You hear him in, in, in, in, in chutz la'aretz. He has no say whatsoever, no saying whatsoever in, in, in Israel. He has no say in any matter in Israel."

1:26:27 Speaker 3 Right.

1:26:27 Speaker 1 "His main focus is to be in the United Nations. That's it." And then he says, and, uh, and to, and, and it's, "For them to be in the government, even when their own rabbis, their own rabbis," Rabbi Yundtman at that time. These are the rabbis that they're mentors, and they, they follow their... They told them that they have to leave the government. They told them-

1:26:50 Speaker 3 Rabbi Satmar.

1:26:50 Speaker 1 -to leave the government, yeah, at that time. And they're not leaving the government. They're going against their own rabbis, the Rebbe. So when I came back and I told him this, he listed it, and he says, and he says, and he, he says, um- He just, he, he, he said that what the rabbis, since their rabbis didn't tell them a date. They didn't tell them, "You can't go up, up until this date. If by this and this date the, the law is not amended, you have to leave the government." They just said they have to leave the government. So, so the siman, it's a ium politi. It's a political, a political threat. So I wrote back to the rabbi what he said, and this, the rabbi, you take a look, very sharp. And this from the... This was at the end, and the rabbi says, "To say, to say on a psak din from a rav that's a political, political threat is a And they can say on any psak from Rav Henkin, they can also the same thing." No-

1:28:01 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:28:02 Speaker 1 ... it, it started off like this. Noisev, 'cause he said there was no date. Noisev that things like this, it's There's no date. You take a look.

1:28:18 Speaker 3 If there's no date, it has to take effect in 30 days.

1:28:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, that's... So, so to say on a, a, a psak din from Rabbonis, uh, from a rav that it's a political, political threat. When I told him that, he was a big rav. When he heard that, it gave him a schtup, I saw. But he, he did, he remained quiet. It really hurt him. It hurt him, but he was Mekubal Davis. He, you know, he really, that sort of like, uh, he was Mekubalit, and that was it. That was the end of that story.

1:28:54 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:28:54 Speaker 1 Okay. I was with Rav Henkin. Rav Henkin passed away in Teves 30. In Teves, yeah, but this is before Teves. This is a year before Teves 30. Teves Lamed Beis. Teves Lamed Beis, uh, the secretary of HaKadosh Rabbonim, who was a, a, a Yid by the name of Jacob Hellerstein, made Aliyah to Israel. They were looking for somebody to re-replace him. And I think Rav Zalman Gourary told Simcha Elberg that, uh, he could, you know, why not put, uh, Levine upstairs? He's in the same building and all that. Why not?

1:29:38 Speaker 3 Zalman Gourary, he was very involved in HaKadosh Rabbonim.

1:29:40 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:29:40 Speaker 3 He was a chavrute, right?

1:29:41 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:29:41 Speaker 3 He was one of the-

1:29:42 Speaker 1 Now, I don't know. I don't know. I never asked him. Even if I asked him, he wouldn't tell me. I don't know if Zalman did that on his own or he was told to do so. I d- I don't know. Um, uh, but I never spoke to him about it. Now, so yeah, so Elberg agreed, and I started working at HaKadosh Rabbonim. Now-

1:30:07 Speaker 3 So you became the, you became the-

1:30:08 Speaker 1 No, I, I replaced him

1:30:09 Speaker 3 ... the secretary, the maskir-

1:30:10 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. The maskir

1:30:11 Speaker 3 ... of HaKadosh Rabbonim.

1:30:12 Speaker 1 Right. Okay, that's where I started. Now, it's Teves Lamed Beis-

1:30:17 Speaker 3 As, as, as paid as well or just because you moved over to HaKadosh Rabbonim?

1:30:19 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, moved to HaKadosh Rabbonim. Now, uh, uh, the Manahil of HaKadosh Rabbonim at that time was a Yid by the name of, of, um, Rabbi Meir Cohen, a big Talmid Chacham. His father was the Madan, Madan Ish Meir, a Pirush on Shulchan Aruch. And he, he was a big Talmid Chacham, Meir Cohen. Now, it's Teves 30 Beis. Yud Aleph Nisan, Teves 30 Beis. It's Shnas HaShivim.

1:30:43 Speaker 3 I have a question. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein is what? What's his position in the-

1:30:47 Speaker 1 The president

1:30:47 Speaker 3 ... HaKadosh Rabbonim?

1:30:48 Speaker 1 President.

1:30:49 Speaker 3 So he's the president. He's the Nasi.

1:30:51 Speaker 1 He's the Nasi.

1:30:51 Speaker 3 The Nasi.

1:30:52 Speaker 1 He's the final word.

1:30:53 Speaker 3 He's the final word.

1:30:55 Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.

1:30:56 Speaker 3 So basically, becoming the maskir of HaKadosh Rabbonim automatically means that you're-

1:30:59 Speaker 1 Exactly. Exactly

1:31:00 Speaker 3 ... you're working with Rabbi Moshe.

1:31:01 Speaker 1 Exactly.

1:31:02 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:31:02 Speaker 1 Right. Right. So, uh, uh, Yud Aleph Nisan, Teves 30 Beis, there was, uh... This is I think a week before I became maskir. Teves Yud Aleph Nisan, uh, Teves 30 Beis, there was a delegation of HaKadosh Rabbonim. The four Rabbonim, I think, Rabbi Meir Cohen, the Manahil, Rabbi Simcha Elberg, another two Rabbonim, I forgot their name. I think Rabbi Reichman. I, I forgot their names. They went into the Rebbe to give a broche for Shnas HaShivim at a yechidus there. The Rebbe sat with them for I think a half hour or whatever. Okay. I was not yet involved in HaKadosh Rabbonim at that time, but I knew of the-

1:31:47 Speaker 3 You weren't, you weren't in the-

1:31:47 Speaker 1 I, I knew of the meeting, though. Now, so the next morning, I went down to HaKadosh Rabbonim to, you know, I was upstairs as a student, and I went down to, to Rabbi Meir Cohen, and I asked him, "Tell me, what, what were you talking about in the HaKadosh Rabbonim?" And by the Rebbe, yechidus. So he says to me, "Rabbi Levine, you should know to sit by the Rebbe is a tiny gruchni. Mamish tiny gruchni. And I want you to know that the Rebbe is sitting where he sit, where he's, where in his room. And it's as though Eretz Yisroel is right next to him in his dalal damas." 'Cause he started telling us what's going on over there. He started telling us about meetings of the government, who sat here, who sat there, who said what, who said that, at what time and when and how. And he spoke about Mehudi. "And it's mamish, you should know by him, Eretz Yisroel is mamish in the same room or next door. Mamish next door. He knows everything. It's mamish a tiny gruchni." Now, Teves Shin Lamed Beis, Teves Shin Lamed. Teves Shin Lamed, yeah. Oh, yeah. Now we're going back to Teves Shin Lamed. I'm still in as a student at that time. Teves Shin Lamed, that's when the- The, uh, Yehudi thing broke out, the whole chaos, you know, with registered as Eden. Uh, yeah. And when the Rebbe came out, the first time the Rebbe came out of this was Purim Tosh Lamid.

1:33:22 Speaker 1 And if you listen to the farbrengen, you'll hear the Rebbe saying like this, there's, there's, there's, there's a subject here that I, I was involved behind the scenes. I didn't wanna make it, didn't go out publicly about it. But I see I have no choice. Nothing's being done, so I have to speak about it publicly. And he started speaking. That's when he started speaking the first time, screaming against the, against the law for an hour. And from that day on until Tosh, until the '80s, he... was not one public gathering where he did not, he didn't mention this. All of the time mentioning the, the, uh, and always demanding that they go out of the government, demanding they go out of the government. This is Tosh Lamid. Now, uh, now, when the Rebbe said, when the Rebbe said that, you know, "I see nobody's, uh, the, the people gave up and nobody's doing about it, so I have no choice but doing it," I could understand what the Rebbe meant because I saw something. I witnessed it myself. And, you know, then I, and, and, and, and, and understood that that's, this is what the Rebbe meant. What happened was like this. They sent HaGados HaRabonim, which Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Elberg, and other two Rabbonim went... There was a de- delegation that went to Israel about this, to make the alarm, to protest it, to meet there with, with the higher echelons of the Israeli government and the Rabbonim at that time to try

1:35:00 Speaker 1 to, to amend the law. This was before the Rebbe was speaking about it. After all, this is the, the tafkid of the HaGados HaRabonim, the Rav, not, not... So I remember when he, when he came back, I was upstairs in Ezras Torah. Rabbi Simcha Elberg came up, because he also had people that he would ask assistance. He would sponsor them. He would be on behalf of them. He would ask to send them money. And he was speaking with this Rabbi Riginsky. And Rabbi Riginsky says to him, "Nu, Rabbi Elberg, what do you say? Well, how was your trip? How can you... What's, what's the... How did you fare in this with Yehudi and all that?" So he says to him like this. I re- I'm hearing this. I'm telling you word by word what I heard with my own ears. He says, "Rabbi Riginsky, there is nothing to be done. I tell you, if you'll take a revolver, a gun, point it to their heads and threaten them, that, you know, threaten them with a revolver, they're not gonna, they're, they're, they're not gonna do anything. They will shoot you. If you're not gonna amend the law, they also will not amend the law. It's-

1:36:07 Speaker 3 The government

1:36:08 Speaker 1 ... impossible. Yeah. It's impossible. Forget it. Forget it." Like, he, he said it openly. Maybe there was others that said it also. You know, when the Rebbe says that people gave up, maybe there was others also, but this is definitely one of them. Okay. So then the Rebbe started activating behind the scenes, HaGados HaRabonim, through Zalman Grunt, through Simcha Elberg.

1:36:36 Speaker 3 You, you, you told this over to someone?

1:36:39 Speaker 1 What?

1:36:40 Speaker 3 What you just told me.

1:36:40 Speaker 1 At that time, maybe I told this to the... I don't remember if I mentioned this to the Rebbe at the Ezras Torah. Could be I did. I don't remember. Could be I did-

1:36:50 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

1:36:50 Speaker 1 ... or told. Anyway-

1:36:51 Speaker 3 But you're saying it's around this tekufa when the Rebbe starts speaking of-

1:36:54 Speaker 1 Yes, yes

1:36:55 Speaker 3 ... the Yehudi problem.

1:36:55 Speaker 1 Yeah, it was right before, right before he started. I think they were-

1:36:59 Speaker 3 Could be Rabbi, could be Rabbi Elberg told the same thing to the Rebbe, by the way.

1:37:02 Speaker 1 Could... Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. Now, uh, Tosh, so after, after, after, oh, after the, the yechidus that HaGados HaRabonim, after Yud Aleph Nissan-

1:37:17 Speaker 3 After Lamed Heis.

1:37:18 Speaker 1 That's when they started, after the Rebbe activated them through Simcha Elberg to activate them on Yehudi. In other words, to make a, a public demonstration against it, to make a tchanis. HaGados HaRabonim made a tchanis. You'll see, you know. And of course, I had to implement this all. This was all, whatever they decided, I had to do the actual, uh, uh, implementation.

1:37:43 Speaker 3 That was your-

1:37:43 Speaker 1 So I organized, I organized the, the, uh, the, the, the, the mass... There was a mass demonstration on the Lower East Side. Everybody came. Even Reb Chodikov came at that time. And, uh, the whole yeshivas went. Everybody came. And Reb Moshe was there, and, you know, we were... It didn't help, but it was a machah. It was a big machah. But this was one of the things that I had to organize and everything like that. Then I was sent to Chicago to make something like that. Stayed by Rabbi Schusterman's home. We were there. Rabbi Hirschberg came at that time. And this was all through Simcha Elberg. But of course, in the back, there was the Rebbe. And of course, here, I was also involved in the implementation. So there were things that I thought that had to be given over, I would always call Chodikov. I never, I never wrote to Rab- the Rebbe. In setlach, I would never write to the Rebbe about HaGados HaRabonim or stuff like that. That would all go through Chodikov. Now, the very first time, I said this many times already. The very first time that I, uh, spoke to Reb Chodikov, don't forget, I was a bocher, and, uh, I was, didn't know anything about the Rebbe on the, the line. I thought I was speaking to Reb Chaim Chodikov. So the very first time I remember, I, I spoke with Reb Chodikov about something about HaGados HaRabonim, and suddenly I hear the Rebbe saying to Reb Chodikov,

1:39:15 Speaker 1 "Reb Berin, ask him about this and this." This later on went on like this. I'll, I'll tell you. Every time the Rebbe wanted to know something, he didn't ask directly to me, even though I'm on the phone and I hear it. He said to Reb Chodikov, "Ask him this and this." So I heard the question twice. I heard it from the Rebbe himself, and then I heard it from Reb Chodikov. But the very first time that this happened, I didn't expect this, and it was like a shock. It was like an electric shock when I heard the Rebbe's voice. I lost my, my identity. I lost my, my, my, my speech. I, I didn't... I was overwhelmed. I, I, you know. And the Rebbe says to ask him, and Reb Chodikov is asking him, and I can't speak. And he's waiting for an answer, and I can't speak. So he said, uh, and he said, "Okay, maybe later." Reb Chodikov says, "No, maybe later," and all that. "Then we'll, we'll speak about it another time," and all that. And we hung up. And then after that, w- w- when I hung up, I said to myself, "What's going on here? The Rebbe is asking, and you're not, and you're, you're not saying anything. I mean, this, this could happen again." So I started thinking in my mind that when I speak to Rabbi Chadakov, even though I hear the Rebbe's holy noise, the Rebbe's not around. That this is like what it says of Sidas

1:40:41 Speaker 1 that when the-- they wish the Simson Elishin. Simson Elishin, when Simson Elishin . He took away the the earth, because or else there's no place for, for, for, for idolaters. Over here also, I had to be this earth. This was, you know, the Rebbe's earth. This... I had to be or else there's no place for me here. There's, uh, you know, like I don't have an identity. And it he- it worked, 'cause I was able then to even hear the Rebbe, speak to Rabbi Chadakov, but I know I'm speaking to Rabbi Chadakov. Okay, I hear the Rebbe, that's like a side thing, it's secondary thing. But its main thing is I'm speaking to Rabbi Chadakov, and I give all the answers. Everything that I'm asked to, I'm, you know, it's gonna... And it came to a point where I was able even to, to, to joke with him or whatever like that. Okay. So Tofshin, I once got... I'm just, I'm, uh, I'll come back soon to, to Yehudi. But, uh, uh, what's interesting is that, that, uh, there was a year, Tofshin, I forgot which year, that I was able to get a letter from Rabbi Moshe and from Gedaliah Schorr s- uh, supporting the Lag BaOmer parades in seven seventy. This was a big thing 'cause it won't... So I got a letter from both of them. I coulda gotten a letter at that time from Rosh Nayri Kotler too. That would've really been a big bomb. But I figured to myself, "I'm

1:42:10 Speaker 1 afraid if I go to him, you know, it could screw up the whole thing. It could, uh, it could be much outcome."

1:42:15 Speaker 4 He was... Rosh Nayri Kotler was part of Agudas Harabonim also?

1:42:17 Speaker 1 Yes, yes, yes. Yes, I was very friendly. He liked me very much. I'll come to that soon. We were very, very friendly. He wasn't like his father. So he, um, so I, uh, got a letter from them, and it was publicized, of course, Jewish press and then the, this. Then-

1:42:34 Speaker 4 It was like a letter, it was a letter from Agudas Harabonim?

1:42:37 Speaker 1 Uh, no, from Rabbi Moshe. A, a private letter from Rabbi Moshe and from, on his stationery.

1:42:43 Speaker 4 Gedaliah Schorr.

1:42:43 Speaker 1 And like, you know, so I wrote the letter and he signed it. He signed the date of the letter and all that. I remember... Okay, so I get a call from one of his, one of his, you know, the people that didn't like me that, you know, that was a Babicha there. And he said, "You know what kind of mistake which you made to the Moshe? You know what you did? You got a letter from Moshe. He's so angry at you." And he started saying, telling me, "He's angry at you that you did this and that, and you said on a Sunday, you're not supposed to on a Sunday. And you know, I was-"

1:43:15 Speaker 4 Oh, so that's a parade's on a Sunday.

1:43:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. "And you don't mention Sundays, you know. And, uh, he's angry, and, uh, uh, it on you." And he frightened me a bit. I... Later on, I found out it's not true. But, but, uh, he's so angry with you and all that. So I remember I, I, I called Rabbi Chadakov. I had to share it with him. And the Rebbe was on the line too. He's listening to my story. I'm telling him the whole story. And he heard it, and he said, he told me, "Nah, don't worry about it. Maybe next time you check it out where he get..." Like he, he dismissed it. And then he said to me in a joking way, "What about did you eat the, the, the eggs? The eggs on Lag BaOmer?" I didn't know there was a minhag to eat eggs on Lag BaOmer. Did you know that? I mean, uh, I, I-

1:44:04 Speaker 4 I think I found out, uh, recently.

1:44:05 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:44:06 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:44:06 Speaker 1 You, you, you eat eggs on, I think, have A list for Rabbi Chadakov. And I didn't know that, that, that was it. And I said, "What's What are you talking about? What kind of eggs?" And I hear in the backg- I hear in the background the Rebbe laughing so hard. You know, it wasn't a smile. He burst out in such a laughter, you know. And I got scared because it was embarrassing. I didn't know what the eggs is about. And I, I, I, I should have known what the eggs is about, and the Rebbe, the Rebbe's laughing s- so hard, and Chadakov is laughing. And, uh, later on, you know, I, I found out that it's a, a minhag, you know. So, so that's one thing. And, uh, coming back to... Well, the Toldos, the Toldos that's already known. I don't know. It was already printed in J- in, uh, in Counter that they had something like that. I don't know. Should I-

1:45:04 Speaker 4 Yeah, say it. Yeah

1:45:05 Speaker 1 ... repeat it? Uh-huh.

1:45:06 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:45:06 Speaker 1 Okay.

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1:47:00 Speaker 4 of Der Her through your financial support as well through visiting our website, derher.org, or through contacting us to setting up a meeting. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the podcast.

1:47:11 Speaker 1 This is during the Kippur War, if you remember. No, no, no. The, the Rebbe said that the way to help, to help victory, to bring to victory and triumph the war is Simcha since the, the mitzvah, the Yoma in Sukkot time. „Simachto b’chagecha,“ through this you help, you can help the, the Tzal to win the war. And, but everybody else, this was like a, you know, everybody is so dejected here in, in America to hear what's going on over there, people falling, two thousand soldiers falling, and this, uh, catastrophe. And how can you be happy in a, such a time? And people used to went over to Reb, uh, Reb Elberg in middle of davening in, in the shul over there. He says, "How come Agudas Yisroel is not doing anything? Some kind of a taanis or, or Yoetz Tephilah. How, how can you guys are quiet? What's all this?" Now, the Rebbe said, "Month Simcha. Sit by Shavei, have dance, and, uh, and this is the way you're gonna help." But of course, to them, they this was a novelty. So, but Elberg saw that everybody wants it, so he decided he's gonna call a, a meeting of all the Agudas Yisroel, of all the members and to discuss it. And whatever is, uh, decided, okay, then whatever is resolved, they're gonna, is, uh, he'll, he'll, he'll tell me to implement. So I remember it's the middle of Chol Hamoed Sukkot. It is the first time Rabbi Pinchas Teitz came, and this guy came.

1:48:55 Speaker 1 I remember this guy. It, it was a big, a big meeting. Usually, the meetings were just small, come a minyan. But now it was ju- It was a big... A lot of people came. Everybody from all the Bobovker members in Agudas Yisroel came. Rabbi Weinberg, Rabbi Mentlick, Rabbi Marozov, everybody. And, uh, and they... So the first person speaking was Rabbi Mentlick. He started giving over the day of the Rebbe, zal avoino simcha, to have dance, yes, it does say month Simcha. And he was speaking very emotionally with pathos. And he got up there, and if, you know, those of you who remember Rabbi, Rabbi, uh, Mentlick, he was very emotional. And he would make with his hands and his body, and he said, "The Rebbe said this, and the Rebbe said that, the other." And he was speaking so strongly, you could see that the Oilem was tilting towards him, like, you know.

1:49:57 Speaker 4 You can't do a taanis.

1:49:58 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:49:58 Speaker 4 Not a, not a good idea.

1:49:59 Speaker 1 Yeah. Then came Teitz's. Teitz started speaking, and he says, "Rabbi Yisroel." And he was also an or- orator, and he said, "You can't understand me because I can't understand how you can dance at such a time. Such a time to be... People are falling there." And, and, and it's like a feldach. So I remember there was a, a, a, a rabbi there who, from the Gerer's, a Gerer ra- uh, rabbi, Rav, who hated, uh, you know, the Misnagdim. So he got up there, and he interrupted, and he said, "Um, um, um, um essen kente yoh," and eating, you're, you're able to eat, and you're able to sleep. Anybody just... You can't dance, but eating and sleeping you can able to remember. Anyway, they resolved it, that there should be a taanis. Actually-

1:50:44 Speaker 4 There should be.

1:50:45 Speaker 1 Yes. They resolved there should be a taanis 'cause Elberg wanted it too. If, uh, if Elberg wouldn't have wanted it, it wouldn't be, but he also wanted it. This gave some kind of, uh, it make... It would, it would give Agudas Yisroel, uh, publicity. You know, be, everybody is for it. The, be it, be, uh, it'll be, and everybody's now into it, and a taanis, and, uh, and Agudas Yisroel is doing it. So they, at night, I think Rabbeim was not at the meeting. So at night, uh, they had a telephone conference. I wasn't there. They had a tel- telephone conference with Rabbeim and others, big Rabbonim at the moment, the old Lubavitcher Rebbe and all the, uh, the Rabbonim at that time. They decided to make a taanis, and they drew up an ad that has to be, you know, has to be publicized on Rosh Hashana Rabba or, yeah, on Rosh Hashana Rabba. And the, the, now they also know you don't, you don't make a taanis on, uh, in middle of Chol Hamoed. But they, they wanted the taanis should be after Simchat Torah, and but they would notify the public during Chol Hamoed that-

1:52:00 Speaker 4 The Rebbe's position was that-

1:52:02 Speaker 1 You don't talk about this now

1:52:02 Speaker 4 ... it's a, it's a zman of Simchas HaYom, so-

1:52:05 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Right, right. So And to me, this is crazy. This is, I mean, what are you gonna tell people? You're gonna tell people that this, uh, before Simchas Torah, that there's gonna be a Taanis, and, and after Simchas Torah, they're gonna dance with the Torah. What kind of simcha would that be if they know there's gonna be such a time? Okay, anyway, they made that thing up, and Elberg says to me, "Okay, bring it down to Jacobson, to the Algemeiner Journal. Bring it, bring it to them." And, and, uh, so I didn't wanna do it at first. I said, "What am I gonna do? Well, how am I, how can I do a thing like that?" But then I said to myself, "If I'm not gonna do it, he's gonna do it. So let me do it, and I'll try to sabotage it." So I took it, and I said to him, "Okay, I'll do it." Now, he knew that there was the deadline was Wednesday, two o'clock. He gave it to me over the phone the, the night before or in the morning, and he knew, he suspected me, you know, I was Lubavitcher, and he suspected me a hoyzishtik, you know. And he called me at ten o'clock in the morning. He says, "You gave it over?" So I said, "Listen, listen, it's, uh, it's two o'clock. There's a deadline. It's only ten. Of course, I'll, I'll do it." He calls me twelve o'clock. "Did you do it?" I said, "I'm, I'm

1:53:30 Speaker 1 away." Calls me one o'clock. "Did you do it?" "Yeah, I'm in the middle of traffic. There's a big traffic jam." And so I came down. He calls me around after two, and I said, "Well, I came, but he told me it was too late. What can I do? It's a traffic jam." Okay, that was, that was, uh, at night. The next morning, I come into, into the office, on Shanah Ora morning, and I... The telephone rings, and I pick up the phone, and Elberg's on the phone, and he says, "Levy, get the heck out of this office immediately. You, you have to be in a nuthouse. What'd you do? How can you speak this? Do you know what you did? Biggest Rabbonim every 70 years said that, that this is, that this, uh, Agudas Rabbonim exists for 70 years, and no one had the chutzpah to go out against Rabbi Moshe and everybody else, and you come along, and you do that. What, what'd you do? Get the... I don't wanna see you here. You're fired. Don't come back. Don't, don't show your face around," and all that. And, and okay, so I left, and I didn't know. I started to think to myself, "I know the Rebbe told me once that I should be in Agudas Rabbonim, and here he's telling me..." I didn't know, uh, how to, how to feel, how to act. And I'm not gonna write about this. This is already Shanah Ora. I am not gonna write about this to

1:55:03 Speaker 1 the Rebbe now. I'm not gonna call Rabbi Chodov to tell him about this now. Shanah Ora, I'm gonna speak about these things to the Rebbe about this, you know. I decide I'm gonna write to the Rebbe about this after Shabbos BeShalach. At that time, Shanah Ora, Friday to Shabbos, I think Shabbos was Shabbos BeShalach. It was, came out like that, you know, where three days, one after the other. So it was after Shabbos BeShalach. Now, Rabbi Gurary told me, Rabbi Zalman Gurary says, "You should have, you should have done what you did."

1:55:32 Speaker 5 Should.

1:55:33 Speaker 1 Should. Yeah. Yeah. They told you, you know, because it's important you be there. So, uh, but I... So when he told me that, I started, I started really feeling bad. Maybe I did wrong. I didn't know. I didn't know. I think... Oh, yeah. Rabbi Moshe, I came to Rabbi Moshe, and Rabbi Moshe told me, he didn't fire me. He says, "If you want, I'll tell Elberg to bring you back." So I said to myself, "Why should I go back? I don't know if I did good or not, because i-if I did good, why should I go back?" And, uh, so I said, "Uh, I don't know." So he says, "Listen, if you want, I'll tell Elberg to give you back, go back." So anyway, so I decided I won't say anything until I write to the Rebbe about it. Then, uh, after Shabbos BeShalach, I wrote to the Rebbe, and I got a Rebbe, I got an answer from the Rebbe saying that, uh, I spoke about this yesterday by the farbrengen. Then the Rebbe spoke about, and he says, "Now is not the time for machlokes." And I think he mentioned it that I could come out sharper than you did, but now is not the time. It's machlokes. And es- But yeah, and especially in, in this He, he, he referred to the, uh, in the time of, uh, Chol HaMoed, you don't make fasts. You don't, you don't proclaim fasts and all that. And that's why I think Rabbi Moshe wasn't so,

1:57:04 Speaker 1 you know, wasn't so e-enthused about this whole thing, about, uh, so, so enthusiastic about making this whole, the, um, publicizing the Taanis in the, in the middle of Chol HaMoed because he also knew the din. Anyway, the Rebbe told me that he spoke about it on Shabbos. On Shabbos, he spoke at that time the difference between Chei'na Magel and But there was a time that you needed ra-rain, so he came to Chei'na Magel. Chei'na Magel had to make a circle. He had to daven. It took time for him to daven, and then it started pouring. He said, "I don't want this. I didn't want it. I don't mean pouring." Then it didn't... It went . It didn't until... It took time. It took time until he got what he wanted. Rabbi Shmuel, all he did was he said, uh, So this is what the Rebbe said. But they wanted, they want to according to Chei'na Magel. According, according to Chei... So what they wanted has a place in Halakha. But I wanted it should be like, you know, like in It should go straight and all that. So, uh- Okay, so I understood from the Rebbe that, uh, I shouldn't have done it. So I went back to Rabbi Moshe and I said, "Okay, I'll go back." And Elberg actually wanted a... He had his... This was all a play by Elberg. He had to show face in front of the other Rabbonim that he's not Lubavitch. Hmm. So he had to show... Yeah. Because

1:58:35 Speaker 1 I'll tell you- You're saying the, you're saying the whole thing that he wanted to- Yeah. To time you? Yeah, yeah. The whole... No, the whole thing that he fired me. Fired you. And he spoke, he spoke to me with such, you know, with, with such degrading names. Really, you know, I'm happy nobody had heard it. So he, he really, you know, washed the floor with me. So, uh, but you know something? I'll tell you something. Years later, years later, ten years later, when I went to... Wait, not even. When I came to Israel. Before I went to Israel, I went to, to Rabbi Elberg with my wife to say good- goodbye. And, uh, you know, like, uh, uh, so he says to me... So he went in, he got a call and he went into the other room, and his wife remained in the room together with me and my wife. And he s- she says to me, "I wanna tell you something. My husband is not listening now, but I wanna tell you something. You know, you should know my, my, my husband admired you very, very much. He... The courage, your, your, your courage a- and your audacity, you know, uh, he, he liked that very much. But, but he couldn't. So, and then when he's, when he was smearing you, whatever he shouted at you, he did it only to save face. If... People should not say that he's Lubavitch with Lubavitch, but he really admired you very, very much." Okay, that's

2:00:08 Speaker 1 one. Now, uh, there was another thing- You wanted to go back, you wanted to go back to Miyuhudi? No. Okay. What, what, what are you talking about? Going back to Rabbi Moshe. He fired me from Rabbi Moshe. No, no. I'm saying you, you wanted me to remind you about going back to Miyuhudi at some point. Is there anything else? Yeah, I'm gonna come to that. I'm gonna come to that. There's something now though. There's another thing with Rabbi Moshe that I d- that I didn't realize so much. I, you know... I mean, I was unaware of that because, because you have to know, uh, to me, there's no... There was the Rebbe and that's it. Uh, uh, you know, the, the other From Rabbi Chadiki, you're talking? Yeah. It was through, through, uh, Rabbi Zalman. So, and they, and, uh... So I went. I, I remember when Rabbi Zalman told me to go, 'cause he paid for it. He paid for my going. So I said, "Why? What for?" He says, "I'm therefore." He's therefore. So I went, and all the Rebbe was there. Then there was the really the Rebbe was like afterwards Rabbi Sorotzkin and Rabbi Ruderman, and there were... And Rabbi Moshe and Rabbi Kamenetsky. There were all, all the big ones. Schneur Kotler. Now, there was this, there was, uh, uh, Rabbi Moshe Sherer was there. I was... Later I was told that the reason that I was sent, this was like four months after the Rebbe came out with Mivtzer

2:04:28 Speaker 1 Neshek. And at that time, Mivtzer Neshek, a lot of people were opposed it, said it's . I was told afterwards by, not by Zalman, not by Chadiki. I was told by somebody, some of these Stams said that could be you were sent because if... They would probably want to speak about against Mivtzer Neshek. And if they would see a Lubavitcher there, it was sort of like deterred them. It was like, you know. It was like, uh... Uh, so I was there at that time, and Moshe Sherer was there too, and to him Lubavitch was really, you know, no-no. But he saw me there, and everybody saw me there with the Lubavitch garb. This is the year after, a couple of months after Moshe was 70. And then the statement was that after Kabbalat Shabbos, after Meir Kabbalat Shabbos, everybody with two thousand guests there, all the would be standing on a, you know, on, on, on by the table, and everybody would go past like official buffer, you know. They go past and say, "Good Shabbos, good Shabbos, good Shabbos." So and then he would say, "Good Shabbos, good Shabbos." When I went by, this Lubavitcher goes by, and I said, "Good Shabbos, Rabbi Moshe." And he says-- So he stopped. He says, "You have where to eat? Come to me." And this is the, they all, they all heard this, this Lubavitcher going to Rabbi Moshe to, to eat. So it was very, it's very interesting. Uh, and yeah, you asked me about me,

2:06:04 Speaker 1 Rudy. Ah. Yeah, actually, the chasidim.

2:06:12 Speaker 6 One second.

2:06:12 Speaker 1 So-

2:06:13 Speaker 6 But then before the chasidim-

2:06:14 Speaker 1 Yeah

2:06:15 Speaker 6 ... um, what, what was some other-- What year was your chasidim?

2:06:19 Speaker 1 Uh, seventy-four.

2:06:22 Speaker 6 So were there some other-- Was there anything between the Moshe and the Rebbe that you were involved in?

2:06:28 Speaker 1 Oh.

2:06:29 Speaker 6 Besides-

2:06:29 Speaker 1 Yeah

2:06:29 Speaker 6 ... besides the chasidim.

2:06:30 Speaker 1 Uh, uh, oh. Yeah. Okay. This is afterwards, after the chasidim. Okay.

2:06:36 Speaker 6 'Cause, you know, so, so start, start with the chasidim, and then we'll move on to the other stuff.

2:06:41 Speaker 1 Okay.

2:06:41 Speaker 6 What's the story of the chasidim?

2:06:44 Speaker 1 Uh, Rebe-- I wanted Moshe to give me because the Rebbe is not gonna give me So I-- Well, I don't want to Moshe. I want he should be by the Rebbe. So I, I... The chasidim is gonna be in seventeen-seventy. I wanted he, he should meet to the Rebbe. So I asked him and he heard it was so he said, "I was also-- My chasidim was also ." And he was very happy for two reasons. He right away agreed. He was happy that, you know, to, to be by me personally, and also I, I, I guess he felt it was, uh, like a deja vu from his chassid. So, uh, he agreed. I didn't tell anybody. I just told him it's gonna be a chasidim at Crown Heights, and that's it. Uh, uh, okay. So then the chasidim came, he came. He came-

2:07:40 Speaker 6 So he had no idea that the chuppah was gonna be in front of seven-seventy.

2:07:43 Speaker 1 Yeah. He came. He came, and then nobody knew. He came, and he, he was there. At first, you see the pictures, they were speaking before the he was with He had a big conversation with And then came the chasidim, Rabbi Riv was there, Rabbi Lipschitz, I think, and then really, the really that were able to be mamshach rashak to come in, in the window. And, uh, after the, after the, the, uh, the chasidim, after the chuppah, Rabbi Albert said to him, uh, "Would, would you wanna go-

2:08:24 Speaker 6 To the Moshe

2:08:25 Speaker 1 ... to Rabbi Moshe, and go to the, to the Rebbe to say hello?" He said, "Of course, of course." And, uh, then he, he went in, and they spoke for forty-five minutes. And, uh, there's a picture where, when he came out, Rabbi Label Groner is helping him put on the coat. Remember that?

2:08:42 Speaker 6 Yeah.

2:08:42 Speaker 1 You saw that picture.

2:08:43 Speaker 6 Yeah. You could see, you could see the Rebbe like-

2:08:44 Speaker 1 You see the Rebbe, so right. And then the main thing is you see the, the time. The time is a quarter to nine forty-five. The Rebbe would come out at nine thirty, but this time because Rabbi Moshe came out fifteen minutes later. That is a picture. What was the picture of the Rebbe coming out, you know. This is very important, this, the clock, because two weeks after two weeks later, all those that the, the, the, the, the, the meeting of Rabbi Moshe and the Rebbe was the front page HaArei Menuchot Yisroel, the main headline that week. That infuriated, infuriated everybody.

2:09:29 Speaker 6 They were infuriated because, like, you, you did some kuntz basically to, to, to bring him.

2:09:35 Speaker 1 They were infuriated because, because, uh, it came out from the article that Rabbi Moshe went to the Rebbe and the Rebbe didn't come to him.

2:09:45 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

2:09:47 Speaker 1 And, uh, they, they, they felt the Rebbe should come.

2:09:51 Speaker 6 They were saying because you, you're bringing the Rebbe at two o'clock in the morning, and you have the picture to prove that it wasn't two o'clock in the morning.

2:09:57 Speaker 1 Yeah. Right. When the Rebbe had his heart attack in nineteen seventy-eight, all the shluchim got together what to do for, you know, to bring a nachas ruach to the Rebbe and to help him, you know, get well soon. So remember, uh, uh, Shlomo Kunin, he was... I think he's the one that initiated it and decided to erect no moises.

2:10:24 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

2:10:25 Speaker 1 I was sort of jealous. Everybody's doing something. What can I do? My capacity. So I figured if I can get a letter from Rabbi Moshe, from the Mivtzoim, that would be a big nachas ruach for the Rebbe. So, but I knew, mm, that if I, that if I asked Rabbi Moshe to write the letter, it's gonna take time, and meanwhile, somebody can come in and see that it's, he's supporting the Mivtzoim, he's gonna right away sabotage it. So I had to figure out how to do this in a way that nobody will sabotage it. Now, I had access to, to Rabbi Moshe to go whenever I wanted. I didn't need an appointment. And I was very, very friendly with his wife, the Rebbetzin. And, uh, it was Shvat, Motzei Shabat Shvat, I think. It was a very snowy day. Nobody was outside. Nobody would go anywhere. I figured this is the perfect time. So I f- so I figured it's enough. I didn't want Heshie to ask him to write it with his own handwriting. All is enough, I'll, I'll-- I drew up the letter that he's supporting all the Mivtzoim, and all he has to do is sign it, like he also does, and the date. So when I bring him this, and I came there, nobody was there. Suddenly, I see that not only is he signing, but he's writing four lines with his handwriting about the Rebbe, how, you know, all of anything that he does is and you should support everything

2:12:07 Speaker 1 that he does. It's means to support it and support it. And, uh, and a-as he's writing, it takes time for him to write. I'm saying, "I wanna get out of here already because maybe somebody could come in in the meantime." And, but I got it. I went out, and it was six o'clock when I came out, and it's s- it was a snowstorm. And I would go to Crown Heights with the bus that goes through Williamsburg goes over the Williamsburg Bridge. But at that time, the Rebbe Davened Ma'ariv Chatzos at 7:00, went home 7 o'clock. So I knew, I didn't think I would make it to bring the Rebbe before he goes, but I wanted the Rebbe should at least know there's a letter of Rabbi Moshe supporting the Mivtzoim. This should help him to get well. So, so I, uh, called up Leibel, Leibel Rabbi, Leibel Groner, and I told him, "You should know I have a letter from Rabbi Moshe supporting the Mivtzoim, and I hope to be there on time. If not, you should know that I have this, and you can relay it to the Rebbe." I took the bus, and the bus went-- I came to New York, to Brooklyn, stopped at Brooklyn Eastern Parkway. I ran out with all my might, and I ran. When I came into 770, it was the last Kaddish after Aleinu. So everybody's standing in line. You know, people are standing in line when the Rebbe comes out from the Beis Midrash to go

2:13:39 Speaker 1 to his room. And I'm standing there with everybody. And the Rebbe comes out, and Leibel is in back of him. And the Rebbe looks everybody-- He sees me. As soon as he sees me, he turns around to Leibel, and he makes with his hand like, you know, and he goes back to Leibel. And Leibel immediately runs to me, and he says, "Give me, give me the letter." And I gave him the letter. He goes in. After ten minutes, he comes out, and he says, "" The Rebbe asked I should tell you, "." Uh, this is something else that I, I have-

2:14:16 Speaker 6 Just one second. Re-remind me, w-remind me again, what year was your Chasuna?

2:14:20 Speaker 1 '74.

2:14:23 Speaker 6 So this is before your Chasuna, right?

2:14:25 Speaker 1 No, this is, this is after '78. This is after the... This is by the, after the destroy-- after the heart attack.

2:14:34 Speaker 6 Oh, that's when this was. Oh, okay. Yeah.

2:14:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:14:37 Speaker 6 There's a letter, there's a, there's another letter to the Rabbi Moshe from Rabbi Moshe-

2:14:42 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

2:14:43 Speaker 6 Like for Dalet Nissan, five hundred and seventy. That you have nothing to do with.

2:14:47 Speaker 1 For the... No. The, the... No, no.

2:14:50 Speaker 6 Yeah.

2:14:50 Speaker 1 Oh, I have something. I have so... Oh, oh, oh. There's something I, I wanted to tell you. Rebbe-- You heard of, uh, Rabbi Paldi, Yehuda Paldi?

2:14:59 Speaker 6 Yeah.

2:14:59 Speaker 1 You ever heard that name?

2:15:01 Speaker 6 The one that, the one that spoke by the Publian.

2:15:04 Speaker 1 Yes. He's the head of the Bachlei Mesaram for Miudit. He's the one that really, you know, was the Rebbe's man on Miudit here in, in Israel. Rabbi Moshe, at first, Rabbi Moshe came out with a big letter in 1970, a big letter, all his handwriting, no type. All his handwriting, big letter, all typing against Miudit, Isigbish, and all that. And he-- And then he came out-- Then years later, uh, uh, a couple of years later, the Rebbe wanted him to come up with another letter, so he took the same letter that he gave out a couple years before, and he wrote underneath, "Everything that I said here in this letter from before is Betekif. It has still validity. It's still valid now." Okay. Then came Teves Shin, I think, five hundred and seventy, or five hundred and eighty. Maybe five hundred and eighty-three. I don't remember one of these years. Rabbi, Rabbi Paldi was there in America, I think it was for Rosh HaShana, Yom Kippur or, or Yud Tes Kislev. And the Rebbe asked that he should get a letter from Rabbi Moshe about, a-about Miudit again, about Miudit, to keep this in the, to keep it alive. So I wrote up, I wrote a letter, and Rabbi Moshe signed it. I asked Rabbi Moshe, actually. Actually, yeah. Uh, sometimes I would ask Rabbi Moshe over the phone if I could sign in his name. He would listen to the thing, and he would give me... Sometimes he would say, "Do this, do that,"

2:16:51 Speaker 1 and he would, he would correct it or whatever and give me permission. This is what I did here, too. And I read to the, I read, I, I made up a, drew up a letter, and I asked Rabbi Moshe, and he, he, he said okay. He confirmed it So I gave him the letter to the Rabbi Paldi afterwards. And when Rabbi Paldi went into the Rebbe... When I wrote, I wrote, uh, um, uh, uh, at the end that, and everybody who can do so, I don't remember exactly. Every-- "Kol mi sheyochal" to, to help, to assist, to, to be "mivatel choyg", to his, uh, uh, "dover labrocha, v'himoshiach tzitzkei'u mayra vyomeinu mamash". Okay. So he comes in to the Rebbe, and he shows him the letter, and the Rebbe looks at it, and he s-looks at him with a smile, and he says, "Tell me, who signed this letter, Rabbi Shlomo Levi?" And with a smile. And then the Rebbe says, "V'himoshiach tzitzkei'u vyomeinu mamash, take this out. This is Lubavitch. This is not a Lubavitch issue. Take this out." They say this, this is Lubavitch. You know what that means?

2:18:25 Speaker 6 Right.

2:18:26 Speaker 1 The Rebbe is "machnah zeh z'chut hamoshiach". You know, he says, "Take out ." And, um, uh, th-th-that, and there was something else I should have... Okay. There's a here with, with Rabbi Soloveitchik. This, this is, uh, I would say it's really the "mashom yochad", as they say in, in, in America. But before I s-say the , I have to give you background, so you'll understand what the context. This is going back in-- Right before in nineteen eighty, before Rabbi Soloveitchik came to the Rebbe for farbrengen in . It's, it was . A month before, there was a in Jerusalem. And there's this, there's this, uh, uh, usually when they made a , it was once every seven years. All the would come. All the in there, in Chutz La'aretz would get invitations. So if they wouldn't be able to come, they'll send maybe a "brocha" or, or whatever. The Rebbe also would get a, a invitation, and would always send a "brocha", a telegram with a "brocha". That year, for some reason, by the-- they wanted to read the Rebbe's "brocha", so there was that that was-

2:20:11 Speaker 6 In Bnei Brak.

2:20:12 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So he said, "." He said, "I'm gonna let..." At the end, they read it. But there was a certain time until they read it, there was a you know. There was rumors and rumors that he's gonna-- he's not letting this, and this guy's saying this, and you know. There were rumors. There were the, there were reporters there. To them, this was a scoop. He's not letting him read the things. So the next day, there was a headline that this guy from Bnei Brak didn't allow the, the, the, the, the reading of the letter. At the end, they did read it, but at that time, they didn't know about it yet, the reporters. It was a on the Rebbe. Then came Soloveitchik came to the Rebbe. The next morning, eight o'clock, Rabbi Elberg calls me. He says, "Listen, I give hasgacha. I give hasgacha on, uh, Coca-Cola." Yeah. And there's a mashgiach, uh, that's in massacre room. He wants to take away this hasgacha from me. His mentor is Rabbi Soloveitchik. I want to call Rabbi Soloveitchik and ask him. He should tell his student should, you know, keep away from it and be not massacre room. I want you to be on the other line to be a witness in case this comes to a detail or whatever. Now, if I would've known what I would hear at this conversation between Elberg and, and Rabbi Soloveitchik, I would've brought a tape.

2:21:48 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

2:21:48 Speaker 1 So I'm the only witness here, but I tell you, it's true, every word. So I was in the other room, and Elberg was in the other room on a little extension. I called up Rabbi Soloveitchik, and I said, uh, "Good morning, Rabbi Soloveitchik. I have Elberg wants to speak to you." "Okay." So this is the way it goes. I hear the conversation. Rabbi Elberg picks up the phone, and he says, "Good morning, Rabbi." Uh, good m- I'm gonna say it in English. It was the, the conversation was in Yiddish, so I'll say it in English, okay?

2:22:22 Speaker 6 Sure.

2:22:23 Speaker 1 So he's-- He say, "Okay." So he says, "Good morning, Rabbi Soloveitchik." "Ah. Good morning, Rabbi Elberg. How are you?" He says, "Fine." So I thought they were gonna start speaking about the, the section. So the first thing Rabbi Elberg says to him, "Rabbi Soloveitchik, how did you like it yesterday?" He says, "What do you mean?" "Yesterday in Lubavitch."

2:22:47 Speaker 6 In the farbrengen.

2:22:48 Speaker 1 Yeah, last night in Lubavitch. He says, "Oh, what are you talking about? What a, what kind of impression that was. I, I was hes-- had a suffering if I should make a that you make when you see six hundred thousand people." He says, "And they're all his. He's the father of the Ba'al Teshuva movement in America." They're all his.

2:23:07 Speaker 6 The Rebbe. The Rebbe.

2:23:08 Speaker 1 Yeah. The Rebbe, yeah. They're all his. What can I tell you? It's mamash. It was... I heard him speak. He knows Tanya ba'al peh He, he, he speaks Gemaras. I s-- I, I noticed he was saying Gemaras Malpe, and at one time he made a mis-- he sort of made a mistake, and right a, a s-- two seconds later, he turned back and corrected himself. And it was, it was mamish, you know. I was later told that he would've stayed longer. He-- Pusha had to go to the bathroom, and he didn't wanna make a big tumult to come back.

2:23:42 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

2:23:42 Speaker 1 Otherwise, he would've stayed much longer. Uh, it was wonderful. So then, uh, uh, Elberg says to him, "You know, Rav Soloveitchik, your coming to the Rebbe, a, a personality like you coming to the Rebbe, sort of diminished the Begier BeKovod of the Rebbe a month ago."

2:24:05 Speaker 7 At that Asefah.

2:24:05 Speaker 1 In Yerushalayim. In Yerushalayim.

2:24:07 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

2:24:07 Speaker 1 And he didn't-- So he said: What are you talking about? So he says-- So he told him that this, this Rosh Yeshiva, you know, this so-and-so said... Who? Who? Which Rosh Yeshiva? What, wh-wh-- Rebbe was-- Wh-who made him for a posek? Since when is he a Man DeOmer? What are you talking about? So he says-- So Elberg says: It was our great Rosh Yeshiva. So he says: No, you're gonna tell Rosh Yeshiva. So what? So what made him-- That he's a posek, he's gonna say this and that. What are you talking about? Who are you comparing to? W-w-what-- Like, you know, you, you-- Who are you dealing with here, you know? Like it was a, a Begier BeKovod, you know. Every-everything is our Hakol BeFiah UBeHais Ramis Bais. Kind of Begier BeKovod. What Kovod? But, uh, tzatztun life.

2:24:52 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm. Wow.

2:24:53 Speaker 1 That was, that was very, you know... I c-- You wanted to ask me something else? Can I-

2:24:58 Speaker 7 So you, so you, you got called about-- You, you made a call about Coca-Cola. You ended up hearing, uh-

2:25:03 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:25:03 Speaker 7 -much more important things.

2:25:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. Listen-

2:25:06 Speaker 7 I have a que-- I have a question, a general question. How did-

2:25:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:25:08 Speaker 7 How did all these, uh, Rabbonim and, uh, Rosh Yeshivas look at you like this Lubavitcher?

2:25:13 Speaker 1 Oh. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Only few knew. Everybody thought Elberg is Lubavitcher, and I'm not, because there were times there were times that Rabbonim had to chaitness on Lubavitch against Elberg. They would come to me and vent, vent their anger at L-- at Elberg that he's with Lubavitch.

2:25:34 Speaker 7 Ah.

2:25:35 Speaker 1 That's an interesting story.

2:25:36 Speaker 7 So your mamish-- So your mamish undercover.

2:25:40 Speaker 1 Well, since you bring it, since you mentioned that, uh, I was sent to Agudath conventions two times. One time, the second time I was there, I remember I went into the convention to, to daven Mincha till Kabbalat Shabbos, and I noticed Rabbi Gal Yeshur, who was then Rosh Yeshiva at Torat HaDaas, he was speaking on a-another Rosh Yeshiva, and he knew me very well. And he... So I walked by, and I nodded my head sort of like to say... And I said: Good Shabbos, you know, to Rabbi Yeshur courtesy. Listen, Rebbe. And he looks at me, he smiles, and I hear him saying, I hear him saying to the Rosh Yeshiva that he's talking to, he says: You know who this is? This is the CIA of Lubavitch.

2:26:30 Speaker 7 The CIA?

2:26:32 Speaker 1 Of Lubavitch. Since you mentioned it, I wouldn't have mentioned it, but you just mentioned it undercover, so I'm telling you. Well, I'm discussing if I should say this, but okay, I do. But, uh, uh, well, the-- At one time, I remember, I remember when the Rebbe starting whistling, the first time the Rebbe started whistling, and when they told Meir Avrum Ciri, who told Meir Avrum Ciri when the Rebbe would go like this, then Meir Avrum Ciri-

2:27:01 Speaker 7 The Rebbe would motion to him.

2:27:02 Speaker 1 The emotion, yeah. So the, there was a picture. There was-

2:27:05 Speaker 7 An argument.

2:27:06 Speaker 1 It was a farbrengen, it was a farbrengen in the middle of the week, and somebody caught, they caught a picture, and that picture was in the Agudat Mishnah journal, the Rebbe like this, you know.

2:27:15 Speaker 7 "What is Geheld you about?" By this, we snagged him, you know. "What's this?" "I'm a fife, fife." And, uh, so, uh, when there was a, uh, a meeting of Yuder Sabarim one time, and there was a rabbi there who was the, he was the son-in-law of the Vardecher Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Ram Yafer.

2:27:40 Speaker 1 Rav Ram Yafer.

2:27:41 Speaker 7 Yeah. And he s-- was there at the f-- He was a member. He cons-- didn't like Lubavitch so much. And he s-

2:27:46 Speaker 1 He had a, he had a brother that li-lived in Crown Heights.

2:27:50 Speaker 7 Could be. I don't know. And he... Oh, Faskowitz?

2:27:54 Speaker 1 No, Rav Ram Yafer's son, Zalman, became a-

2:27:57 Speaker 7 Oh, that's something else. Yeah. Okay.

2:27:58 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:27:58 Speaker 7 Anyway, so he, he, uh, was sitting there, and Zalman is sitting there, too. It was a meeting of Yuder Sabarim with Zalman, Rav, and he was sitting there. And then he says-- And then he looks, he looks, he brings out, takes out Agudat Mishnah journal about the Rebbe fife him, and he says to the Rabbonim: "Look at this. What is Geheld you about? What is Geheld about?

2:28:22 Speaker 1 So Zalman, of course, was there, and he says: "This is, uh, a Rambam," I think he says. "A Rambam." Because he was sp-- Zalman was, was, uh, referring to the Rambam, the head of, uh, Dovid HaMelech Mechache Umechases for, you know, Shem Shamayim. He was dancing. You know, what that Rebbe-

2:28:42 Speaker 7 The father is a Mechache, Mechales, yeah.

2:28:44 Speaker 1 Yeah. Mechache, and they had a psukah. He says: "A Rambam." So Faskowitz says... They get this guy, says: "This time the Rambam." So he says: "Do you know the Rambam?" "This time the Rambam." And they're going back and forth. Elberg saw that, and he says: "You know what? Let, let, let's make a deal. Whoever is right, the one who loses has to give $100, donate $100 to Agudas Habonim." Now, I knew that this was in the Sukkah Baruch, after Sukkah Baruch.

2:29:12 Speaker 7 I was saying I, I, I have a shtickel, uh, um, uh, Chinchas Alamden. But isn't it a pasuk?

2:29:19 Speaker 1 What? Yeah. Okay.

2:29:20 Speaker 7 The, the Melech Dovid-

2:29:21 Speaker 1 No. Yeah.

2:29:22 Speaker 7 -father is a Mechache, Mechales is a pasuk.

2:29:23 Speaker 1 Right. Right. But, but, but, but the Rambam brings this as a riot that you should be-

2:29:29 Speaker 7 Right. Okay.

2:29:29 Speaker 1 How you should ref-act, how you should behave when doing a mitzvah or-

2:29:34 Speaker 7 Fine. Okay. Fine.

2:29:35 Speaker 1 -being involved in a mitzvah. Right. He brings that pasuk. Right.

2:29:38 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

2:29:39 Speaker 1 So, and this is what Zalman wanted to bring out. The Rebbe meant it for Shem Shamayim. And the Rebbe once, uh, a-also once has a sifro. There's a sifro the Rebbe wa... You can hear it on tape where he says that if this brings people to be close to Yiddishkeit, so you do it. So you see, it's a, it's a, a Jewishly good thing because that's the Even HaBechin, if you're doing something right or not right. If it brings close to Yiddishkeit, so you're doing it right. If not, not. Now, then there was in Tov Shin Gimmel, Lamed He, Lamed He, I think Lamed He Lamed Gimmel, when the Rebbe wanted HaKadosh Baruch Hu to make a, a fast day for Mi Yehudi. People should have a, a half-day, a half-day fast for-

2:30:31 Speaker 8 So this is Rebbe wanted a fast? Mm-hmm.

2:30:33 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And he wanted HaKadosh Baruch Hu should proclaim it, that everybody should do it. Now, I'll bimagal you something now that, Adar Yom, I don't know, maybe I told it in a previous pod-podcast, but that was the first time too, probably. Uh, he, he, he made... HaKadosh Baruch Hu made the, uh, the, the, the, the announcement, the ad that because Mi Yehudi we're, we're proclaiming a half-day fast, and we should say these Kapitel Tehillim. And they put their, uh, a, a few Kapitel Tehillim that they decided people should say that that day. And I took it. I, I know they don't care about Tehillim, they care mainly about the publicity. So I put in Kapittel Ayin Beis, that was the Rebbe's Kapitel that year. So among all these, uh, things, I put in Ayin Beis. So what you had that fast day that everybody was saying the Rebbe's Kapitel. And even in seven seventy, they also said these Kapitelach, and they also said Kapitel Ayin Beis. Could be because of that or something else, or maybe because I made the f-- I was very involved in that, that Shabbos, the first time, I was still a bocher, that Shabbos, the Rebbe turned where I was standing by farbrengen, and he said, he made a point and he said, "L'shana tova." At first I didn't expect it. I didn't think it was me, because I, you know, I never... I was a bocher still, and I don't remember doing anything that, uh, that warranted it.

2:32:21 Speaker 1 But then they've said a couple of times until I was told, "The Rebbe means you, say L'chaim." That was one. There is... Oh, then there's the, there's the letter where I wrote to... When I was learning with Rav Henkin, or it was afterwards, I had Rav Henkin's stationery. I had Rav Henkin's stationery, and, uh, I w-wanted he should write a letter to the Rabbonim Roshim, Rav Unteman, Rav Nissim at that time, to, um, you know, to, to, to, to urge their followers, the, the National Religious Party, to leave the government or to not-

2:33:07 Speaker 8 Mi Yehudi.

2:33:08 Speaker 1 You know, Mi Yehudi, yeah. So I drew up a, a, a letter, and since this was R-Rav Henkin, so I had to be a shtickel lamdis, you know, also. So the Rav Nissim says when it comes to Rav Henkin. So I wrote down the Mishneh in Pe'ah where the Mishneh in Pe'ah says that there's a machloket there between the Aniim that take Pe'ah, over the, this, uh, thing. You listen to the one, Mi She'omar Kal Ocha. That's in the Talmud. The one Mi She'omar Kal Ocha, you have to listen to him. And then there's Agur, there's the Pirush Agur which says, "Even if the person that has-- says this Ka-Kal Ocha has a certain ulterior motive, it's not lishmo, you also have to listen to him because he said Kal Ocha. He said Kal Ocha, you have to listen to him." And I wrote this letter, signed his name, and I sent it, and I sent it a copy to the Rebbe. And then I sent it. At that time, the, there was no faxes at that time yet, so it was sent by mail expressly on federal, uh, to Berke Wolf. Berke Wolf, he would be the... The Chabad, he would bring over all these letters to Rebbe. It's actually to Frank Wolf, and he would give it to Berke. So I sent that. I s-- I gave it over to Merkes. Merkes would send it to Berke. And I was told later on that the Rebbe every hour, as soon as I sent

2:34:31 Speaker 1 it, I sent him this copy of this letter that I wrote in the name of Rav Henkin to the Rebbe. I heard later on that every hour the Rebbe nudged Merkes, "Did it go out yet? Did it go out? Did you send it to, uh, to, to, to Berke? To, to, to whatever, to, in Israel? Did you send it or not?"

2:34:49 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm. Well, what, what ended up happening... So you did this until, until you moved to Israel?

2:34:58 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, I was at Israel. Now, there, there's a whole... It's a different... It's a, it's a nutkufe. A nutkufe. We have to do with... I, I became a, a, a... Oh, do you know what it is? I became a, a, a, a parliamentary advisor to Yuval Ne'eman. He was a science minister, an atheist. You know what that means?

2:35:20 Speaker 8 So why did you move to Israel?

2:35:22 Speaker 1 Going from place... From place. My wife wanted to.

2:35:24 Speaker 8 Oh, okay.

2:35:25 Speaker 1 So, uh, so anyways, I went all the way there, and, uh, and I was in, in nineteen eighty-two. In nineteen seventy-two, there was a vote in the Knesset about Mi Yehudi. That's the time when Avner Shaki, if you remember, if you know-

2:35:44 Speaker 8 Sure

2:35:44 Speaker 1 ...if you heard. He voted for it, and he was expelled from-

2:35:48 Speaker 8 He voted for, for changing the law.

2:35:51 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Everybody was against him, even as in... He was from the Mapai, from National Religious Party. And even the Rebbe, well, he-- I remember him coming to the, the, the farbrengen. The Rebbe s-got up for him a little, sort of like tzorres tov.

2:36:04 Speaker 8 He was a big Hasid.

2:36:06 Speaker 1 Well, he, he was surprised, but yeah. Almost voted. Anyway, so, um, he, um, at that time... Now, a month before, Shloime Lawrence was, uh, at, you know, he was the guy in Beis, he was repr-representative of the guy in the Eprach, and he was very, very anti-Lubavitch. He was in, in, uh, in America. As a storah, this was when I was in as a storah. As a storah, asked me to go to him for a Motzei Shabbos program for as a storah. He's a Chabad Chassid, you know, he was so... So I went to him, and I made a, a, a rapport with him. He didn't know I was Lubavitch. I made a rapport with him. I made a very good rapport with him. Now, when, when I was-- Now, when it came to this vote, so word came out that Agudah, I, I think Agudah brought up the vote to embarrass the Movdal, to embarrass Movdal. It was all politics. They didn't mean Yehudi. They didn't mean me, Yehudi.

2:37:19 Speaker 8 They were trying to embarrass them w-in which way, yeah?

2:37:22 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, so that's why I, that's why I wrote the letter to Untermann saying that even if it's... They, they also knew, the rabbi, the rabbonim of, of Movdal also knew that it... They're doing this despite to embarrass the Movdal. It's all politics. One party wants to embarrass the other party. And so-

2:37:39 Speaker 8 How is it embar-- And how are they embarrassing them?

2:37:41 Speaker 1 Because, because it's like you're not here. You have a... We're gonna have votes for Gir Hakalacha. You consider yourselves frum, modern Orthodox, right? You consider yourselves Orthodox. You're frum. You're for Gir Hakalacha, right? You're just saying you can't go out of the government 'cause you wanna preserve Yiddishkeit. But you're frum. That's a meaning that you wanna preserve Yiddishkeit. And now you're not. And, and, and they w- they didn't wanna vote for it. They abstained.

2:38:08 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

2:38:08 Speaker 1 And, uh, he's-- Chasky was the only one that voted for it. They were very much against it 'cause they didn't wanna g-give in to, to Lawrence, to the Agudah. But then I heard, we heard that, uh, that, uh, Agudah might take, uh, uh, remove, remove the law from the agenda. There would be no vote on it. And the Rebbe wanted very much there should be a vote. Since I knew Lawrence, I called him up. I heard about that, and I called him up, and I started telling him. I st-told him who I was, if he remembered, you know. Told him, "Listen, you can't remove it. I heard you wanna remove it." By then he knew I was Lubavitch already because he says, "Listen..." No, he don't know. He said like this: "Listen, we don't wanna remove it. But if you have any connections there to the Lubavitcher Hof, the Lubavitcher crowd there, make sure that, you know, that, that they should, uh, the Movdal. Don't pressure me. Pressure them." Now, I was back with... There was, uh, it was the middle of the night at that time. I didn't sleep that night. That same night, the night afterwards, the day afterwards, I was going to the Yechidus for my Yemei Leitus. But meanwhile, the same day, that morning, until the Yechidus, I was on the phone with Rabbi Chodikov, and the Rebbe was on the phone and all that. At a certain point, you know, I was exhausted, and I, I had to go to

2:39:31 Speaker 1 the... I was going to Yechidus to the Rebbe. And going to the Yechidus, I had my thing. You have to have a Chones. There's no There's no me Yehudi. There's no nothing, you know. No, the... You have to go to the Yechidus. You have to make a Chones. And there's no With all the schmutz on me with the, with, uh, a couple hours before. And Rabbi Chodikov was telling me to do certain things. I said, "Listen, I don't know because I'm going..." And the Rebbe's listening. So I said, "Look, I don't know. I will go. I have to, I, I have to go to the Rebbe to Yechidus tonight. I have the Yemei Leitus. I have to make a Chones. And, uh, I'll try to do whatever I can," and all that. He pardoned me. Pardoned me. And, uh, and I did my Chones, my, you know, whatever, the limb fasting. And, uh, when I went in, when I went in to the Rebbe, I didn't expect... I never spoke to the Rebbe. I never wrote to the Rebbe about Whenever I had a it was through Rabbi Chodikov. But whenever I wrote a letter to the Rebbe, it was my personal... If I had personal problems or personal yoniym, and especially when I go into Yechidus, I would never speak about these things and all that. So when I went to Yechidus, it was only like, you know, Rebbe, and, and, and that's it. So when I went to Yechidus, the Rebbe gave me

2:40:56 Speaker 1 a berakhah, and the Rebbe just, he added something that he never added till now. He said,

2:41:07 Speaker 8 Thank you very much, Rabbi Levin. And, uh, it seems that there's more to say. So, uh, perhaps, uh, Be'ezrat Hashem, I could do a part two. And, uh, Thank you.

2:41:19 Speaker 1 Okay.