Ep. 64: A Man In A Girls School Is A Bidieved with Rabbi Nochem Kaplan

00:00 Speaker 1 And when I sent it back, she asked Chesa to call me up and ask whether they could keep it overnight. I said, "Keep it as long as you want, of course." So she set up the picture against a vase in the dining room, on the dining room table. And when the Rebbe came in, he saw the picture, and she told him what it was, who painted it. And the Rebbe asked Shalom Ber to bring down his Seferim from the study upstairs, downstairs. And that night he sat opposite the picture all night.

00:35 Speaker 2 Wow. As we enter the new year, secure your family's daily Tzedakah with Keren Hashanah. Founded by the Rebbe in 1953, 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 Der Her, 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 Kaplan. How are you?

02:06 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem,

02:07 Speaker 2 And how are you? Baruch Hashem, doing great.

02:11 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem.

02:12 Speaker 2 All right, so let's get right into it. Um, before we get to Rabbi Kaplan, Rabbi Nochum Kaplan, I wanna-- I'm interested to know a little bit more about, uh, the roots of, uh, where you come from and how we... Then, then, then we'll get to-

02:27 Speaker 1 My roots? I did not grow on a tree, I assure you. You're talking about my ancestry.

02:31 Speaker 2 Exactly.

02:32 Speaker 1 Ah, okay. So I'm-

02:33 Speaker 2 They, they call that, no? The Gaza roots, no?

02:37 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, my father's family is, uh, a Litvisher family going back many, many generations. Uh, my grandmother used to say there were 20 Deidus of Litvisher Rabbonim from who she comes. Many of them we knew. We know there's, we know there's Seferim, we know they were, where they were Rabbonim. Uh, that's my mother's, my father's mother's family. My father's father's family also is from Lita. We come from, uh, the Chagas Chaye was the grand Litvisher Rosh Yeshiva. So those are my, my father's roots. My mother's roots are from Russia, White Russia, and going back in Lubavitch for many, many generations, back to the Chassidim of the Alter Rebbe.

03:27 Speaker 2 The Alter Rebbe.

03:29 Speaker 1 Alter Rebbe.

03:30 Speaker 2 So I'm interested in two things. I guess let's start with your mother's family. I don't know if we'll go back all the way to the Alter Rebbe, maybe Bekitze, but who was your Zeyde? And then we'll hear about the Kaplans.

03:41 Speaker 1 My Zeyde, after whom I am named, Nochum Yitzchak, was born in a town called Starodub. It was a town of about ten thousand Jews, the majority of whom were Lu- were Chassidim, Chassidim of Tzemach Tzedek. In the course of the years, many of them were noted to Kopust, but, uh, they were Lubavitcher Chassidim. The first Lubavitcher yeshiva that held out Bochurim and, uh, made sure that they had lodgings and food, et cetera, first major Lubavitch yeshiva was in Starodub. Starodub had, because of the size, it had a printing press. They printed Nusach Ari Sidurim. Uh, they used to say that, uh, "Starodub, Starodub was a, was a, a major place. What's interesting is that, uh, during the communist rule, once the communists came in, this whole shtetl, the whole shtetl converted to, uh, the Russian religion of atheism in a very short time. Achman al tzan. My father's-- my grandfather's father was a Lubavitcher Yid, and he died young. So the family didn't know to... My grandfather, who was the youngest in the family, he had a younger sister, but he was the youngest boy in the family. They decided to send him to his grandfather. His grandfather lived in Pahare. A Chassidisher shtetl in Ganzen. Uh, in the census of 1902, there were about 100 people living there.

05:26 Speaker 2 Pahare.

05:28 Speaker 1 But they produced many Chassidische Yidden. So he was there, he came there before Bar Mitzvah, and his grandfather was a Chassidisher Yid, and was getting And my grandfather learned in Pochip until Tofrei Samach Beis. He was about 15 years old, close to the 16, and during that time, Reb Wolf Levitin, Reb Shmuel Levitin's father, was appointed as the mashgiach, what we know today as the menahil of the Yeshivat Temim Chachmeim Lubavitch. Before that, there were people in and out, but he was there bekvias already for many years. So they brought him in Tofrei Samach Beis. Now, his son, Reb Shmuel, was learning there many, many years before. He came there, uh, chves at the end of the noons or the early samuchs. As Tofrei Samach Beis, he took this 15-year-old kid with him, and they sent him to Horochitz, as the process in Lubavitch was. A boy of 15 years old doesn't go into the chederim, he goes into a feeder yeshiva. He was in, in Horochitz for a couple of years with Reb Zalman Havlin, and then he came to Lubavitch about, about Tofrei Samach Dalet, maybe after Rosh Hashanah Samache, something like that. Then he stayed in Lubavitch. He was-- learned in Lubavitch proper for about four years, and then he was married. As most Lubavitch at Temimim, he, he was a yosem. He had nobody to look out for him. My grandmother was a couple of years older than he, and, uh, she as a girl had typhus. A maidel metif, you

07:34 Speaker 1 know, people were careful of that. And he was from a town called Rechitsa. Reb Sholom Ber Rechitsa was the Rechitsa Rebbe, the son of the Kopas.

07:43 Speaker 2 Who, who was from there?

07:45 Speaker 1 My mother's mother was from Rechitsa.

07:48 Speaker 2 Okay.

07:49 Speaker 1 Her father was a gabbi in the Rechitsa shul. By Rechitsa Rebbe. How does Kopas come to Lubavitch? When you have a 25-year-old daughter and you don't know what to do, they fought in Lubavitch. So they were married around Tofrei Samach Tes, something like that. And, um-

08:11 Speaker 2 Two things. That was unusual that a Kopas would marry a Lubavitcher yomalt?

08:14 Speaker 1 Kopas and Lubavitch is yureg ipok leida. They didn't-- generally, they didn't, uh, go together well.

08:22 Speaker 2 Okay.

08:25 Speaker 1 On the other hand, there were intermarriages between Kopas and Lubavitch all over the place. Be that as it may, um, my, my grandfather, after he was married, went back to Starodub. So he came back to Starodub. It was about an er to ta- more or less, it's, uh, Tofrei Ayin Beis, Ayin Gimel, exactly the year, just before the revolution. So during the first years, he came back and, uh, the, his family had a shtickel business. He was doing whatever he was doing. Once the World War set in, once the Communist Revolution set in, it destroyed, as I said, it decimated the town Yid- Yiddishkeit. So my grandfather was there. He was forced into a kolkhoz, a cooperative, a collective farm.

09:15 Speaker 2 Far away?

09:16 Speaker 1 No, outside of, outside of Starodub.

09:18 Speaker 2 Yeah.

09:19 Speaker 1 Which was run by, by a former Lubavitch Hasidim, yirei Yiddish.

09:26 Speaker 2 So I don't understand. So people living their lives as, as Hasidim, uh, in the, in the few years-

09:31 Speaker 1 The children

09:31 Speaker 2 ... the children.

09:31 Speaker 1 The children, over the course of a couple of years, some of them came back from the war. Some of them were, were communists, dyed in the wool. As soon as they heard the freedom of communism, so they jumped, they jumped ship and became communists. At any rate, my grandfather was the only one who was shomer Shabbos on that kolkhoz, and as a result, they deducted two days' pay from him. So you worked officially six days, and they give off on Sunday. But if you didn't work on Shabbos, they took off six days. So the few days that they paid you for was barely vasser haf kasher. It was to eke out an existence out of that, but certainly not to be able to feed a family, and he had a family already. And then they took off a couple of days' pay. You can imagine how difficult it was. My mother told me, my mother, alav ha-shalom, grew up her first years in Starodub, later on in Kharkov. She never in her life, she went to shkolah, to a Russian state school, was never mechallel Shabbos. Do you know what that means? You go to a state school, some of the teachers are Yid mechallel Shabbos, and you find a way mit aza teretz and aza teretz. You know, they put a cast on her right hand, so that freed her for two months. She's wearing a cast, et cetera, et cetera.

10:59 Speaker 2 Did she do this herself or someone helped her do this?

11:02 Speaker 1 The family helped her, obviously.

11:03 Speaker 2 Who's her, who's her family like? Like, Yehoshua Pinczen and this and-

11:05 Speaker 1 Her brother

11:06 Speaker 2 These are the bro-- Oh, these are brothers.

11:07 Speaker 1 Her brother, older brothers, yeah.

11:08 Speaker 2 Okay.

11:10 Speaker 1 But she was never mechallel Shabbos. Somewhere around toward the end of the peys, um, I believe it was in pey zayin, my oldest two uncles, Yehoshua Pinczen, who became the gabbi in '77, and his older brother, Tanchum, uh, went off to yeshiva to learn in Nevel. Till pey zayin, pey ches, it was not terrible. Not terrible. It was a yeshiva, mit a erev given, you know. It was very difficult, but it wasn't terrible.

11:42 Speaker 2 We had a few months ago in the, the Hamagazine a little write-up about the Nevel, the yeshiva of-

11:47 Speaker 1 The Yeshiva Neveler. So, but after that, it became increasingly difficult, difficult. And, uh, the yeshiva was disbanded in Nevel. Reb Shmuel Levitin, who was the mashgiach and the, the mashpia, was sent to Siberia. And, um, well, they learned in Nevel. After that, they learned in Kharkov There were three of them. My youngest uncle, Nissen Pinson, learned by Mesiras Nefesh the same way he was a chaver of my father's. So they descended upon a town, a Biene, uh, sent them to a town.

12:26 Speaker 2 Biene Potava.

12:27 Speaker 1 Biene Potava. Sent them to a town. Here is where you're gonna be learning. Well, besod, the townspeople couldn't know they were there. The people who came to shul, many of them were ankle biters, and they weren't allowed to know they were there. So they deposited themselves in the viber shul, the ladies section, generally a gallery upstairs. During the hours when people came to shul in the morning, they slept, and they got up, davened on whatever meager provisions they had, and then they learned all day and all night. That was the way it was. So my father also, as we'll come to later on, my father learned like that, and my uncle Nissen learned like that as well. So that's my mother's family.

13:13 Speaker 2 So what happened to your Zayde?

13:16 Speaker 1 Um, around Tofresh Tzadok, a little bit later, I think it was Tzadok Caliph maybe, Stardub became impossible, and my uncles were already learning elsewhere. So my th- my father- my grandfather decided to move to Kharkov. Kh- Kharkov is, uh, a distance away. Kharkov is a major city. But you weren't allowed to move away from Stardub. You are a member of a kolkhoz, you know. You're gonna live here, you're gonna die here. So he had to run away at night, and whatever they had at home was all left there, and they ran away and moved to Kharkov, where, again, my mother went to school, and my uncles were in various underground yeshivas.

14:03 Speaker 2 I interviewed a, a Shomberg Gurkov from Montreal. He was talking about that kolkhoz.

14:09 Speaker 1 Kharkov, that Gurkov, yeah. His family lived in Kharkov.

14:11 Speaker 2 He was in yeshiva there, yeah.

14:13 Speaker 1 Yeah. He was not in the yeshiva.

14:15 Speaker 2 Yeah, he was born.

14:15 Speaker 1 He was born there.

14:16 Speaker 2 He was alive, yeah.

14:16 Speaker 1 He, he was born there.

14:17 Speaker 2 Yeah.

14:18 Speaker 1 Yeah.

14:18 Speaker 2 His father was in the yeshiva.

14:20 Speaker 1 His father was in the yeshiva in, yeah.

14:22 Speaker 2 Yeah.

14:24 Speaker 1 During his bachar years. But his grandfather moved there.

14:27 Speaker 2 Yeah.

14:27 Speaker 1 Menel Gurkov moved to Kh- to Kharkov. Be that as it may, there was a shtikel kehillah, and, um, my grandfather, he had, he had to find a place to live. In order to find a place to live, you had to show that you were a, a upright, a sta- upstanding worker in the Soviet Union. But he couldn't do that because he had run away from Stardub. So he found a basement or a cellar, a large open cellar, and he and his sons came in and tried to make the cellar livable. You understand there was no Hollywood furniture there. Uh, they had-- It was a concrete floor. That was about the extent of it. But other than that, they had to turn it into some livable space, which they did, and they lived there for a number of years because it was a lo- larger space. So the Tmimim would meet in my, in my grandfather's house to daven on Shabbos, mit fabrach dortn. So all Chassidish things happened in my grandfather's house. And later on in Tafresh, uh, Tzadiktess, when, uh, the Malshin, yimach shme, came in and was-- talked about what was going on with the Lubavitchers, they wanted to persecute the Lubavitchers. My grandfather was a priz-

15:44 Speaker 2 You're talking, you're talking about a specific Malshin.

15:46 Speaker 1 There was a Malshin, yimach shme ve'zichra. Because of him, many Tmimim dies.

15:53 Speaker 2 And he was a, he was a whatever.

15:55 Speaker 1 He was a Lubavitcher.

15:56 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

15:57 Speaker 1 Yes. At any rate, they all Malshin my grandfather that everything happens in his house, and so he was arrested together with four others in, uh, in, uh, Kharkov. It just so happens that my father's father, who was not a Lubavitcher, was also arrested for the same things. He was called Schneer Sonske, doing Lubavitcher things, being a karav Yidden. And, uh, my grand- my f- mother's father, my grandfather Pinson, was sent to three years at hard labor, and didn't survive the first, uh, first winter. Three years at hard labor.

16:38 Speaker 2 Hard labor, yeah.

16:40 Speaker 1 Hard labor in, in Siberia. It's, it's, it's not survivable. He wasn't an old man, but it was, uh, whatever he was, um, it was not survivable for somebody like him.

16:53 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

16:54 Speaker 1 So he succumbed after just a few months.

16:56 Speaker 2 Namush.

16:57 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:59 Speaker 2 Okay. It's real Mesilat Nefesh.

17:01 Speaker 1 The other pil Namush, right? It's not-

17:02 Speaker 2 Yeah, an actual.

17:03 Speaker 1 Yeah, real.

17:04 Speaker 2 So that's the Pinson side. Now, the Kaplan side-

17:08 Speaker 1 His-- I should add, listen, we're going back generations. His grandfather, his grandfather was not a, uh, the son of a, of a Lubavitcher, but his father-in-law, my great-great-grandfather, my great-great-great-grandfather, was a Chassid of the Mitteler Rebbe and a Chassid of the Alter Rebbe. So it goes back, we go back to Chassidim all the way back to the Alter Rebbe.

17:30 Speaker 2 So it's on the grandmother, then it goes all the way back.

17:32 Speaker 1 On the grandmother's side.

17:34 Speaker 2 So the Kaplan side, you said they were Litvisher. So how did they get involved with Lubavitch? How'd that happen?

17:41 Speaker 1 My grandfather was a Talmud of Slabodka, and after he got married, uh, he settled in a town called Malat. And as a Talmud of Slabodka and a Talmud Chovov- Chovivov, Rabbi Abel Leibovich, who brought his yeshiva to Baranovich, Malat was not far from there. At that time, it was part of Lita. So he had a mechine in Lita, mechine for Baranovich and for Slabodka. So he had boys of fourteen, fifteen years old, and, uh, he said shiurim for them

18:16 Speaker 2 We're talking about pre-World War I, right?

18:18 Speaker 1 I'm talking pre-World War I. Pre-World War I. Then the war broke out. So my grandfather felt that, uh, the Germans were klipes hamolech. You can't stay with them. You have to run deeper into Russia. They ran into Russia. Also a polit. After the war, they allowed people from various countries to repatriate themselves, to go back to the countries of their origin. So he came to the Lithuanian embassy, and he said, uh, "I wanna repatriate myself. I wanna go back to Lita." "Where you come from?" "Malat." "Nah, Malat is Poland today." Because j- the settlement after First World War, they cut off a piece of Lita, made it Poland. Kamieniec was also became Poland.

19:02 Speaker 2 A lot of Lita became Poland-

19:03 Speaker 1 Right

19:03 Speaker 2 ... yeah, Brisk and all these places.

19:05 Speaker 1 Correct. So he went to the Polish embassy. "Where you from?" "Malat." "Malat? Eh, we don't have Malat. Malat is part of... We can't repatriate you because you were never part of Poland. You're part of Lithuania." So he had no alternative. He was stuck. As much as he feared the Russians at that time, we're talking about, uh, 1920, he had no alternative. Stuck. So in 1922, he decided no tachlis living in Russia under the communist rule.

19:39 Speaker 2 What, what was happening then? The, everyone left Russia besides the Lubavitchers, basically?

19:43 Speaker 1 Everybody who could fled from Russia.

19:45 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

19:45 Speaker 1 Many Lubavitchers fled. Uh, Dokszyce became Poland, for example. Uh, other cities became Poland. Drusya, Rabbi Ben Zion Shemtov was from, became Poland.

19:59 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

20:00 Speaker 1 So Ben Zion Shemtov never saw his father after that.

20:02 Speaker 2 'Cause he went into Russia, yeah.

20:04 Speaker 1 He was in Russia, was in Poland.

20:06 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

20:09 Speaker 1 At any rate, he's stuck in Russia, so he decides, "I'm going to go to Eretz Yisrael." He had a brother-in-law in Eretz Yisrael, and he was sent a visa from Eretz Yisrael, which was also difficult, but it wasn't quite settled, not so quite communistic yet. And, um, he was ready to go to Eretz Yisrael. So he became a rebbe in a little shtetl, town called Krylov. A shtetl in the southern part of White Russia.

20:38 Speaker 2 He's a bachur.

20:39 Speaker 1 He's a yungerman with four children.

20:40 Speaker 2 Oh, okay.

20:41 Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm telling you. I'm skipping a lot.

20:42 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, okay.

20:43 Speaker 1 This is 1922. He was married in 19, uh, in 1917 probably, or '16. No, not '16. My uncle was born in 1913. 1910 probably he was married. It's way into... So he was, uh, over there for about 10 years, eight years. At any rate, 1922, he went through, um, left everything and went through the, the official, um, uh, government agency, so-called. They gave him permission to leave, but they wouldn't allow him to leave. "If you can find a visa and get out, yes. Okay, go. Gezunt aheit." So he decided he's gonna get out one way or another, and he'll go through a freighter ship in the Black Sea. He had to go down to Baku, which is a, a town on the Black Sea. And there, to get a ticket on a freighter, freighter boat, and from there to go to Istanbul, and from Istanbul to Eretz Yisrael. That was the way a number of people came out during that time and a little later on. So he sold his, uh, his, whatever possessions he had, made his way down south. Baku is in the south. He passed through Rostov. So Rostov, he passed through on a Friday. He decided, "I'm not going further. I'm stopping in Rostov, and, uh, we'll spend Shabbos in Rostov." Rostov, they found a Lubavitcher Rebbe. Lubavitcher Rebbe was not an old Lubavitcher Rebbe. It's a new Lubavitcher Rebbe-

22:21 Speaker 2 Friediker Rebbe, yeah

22:21 Speaker 1 ... who just took the Nasiyus two years ago. But already all of Russia knew the Lubavitch Rebbe is the address. If you wanted to try to maintain some sort of Yiddishkeit, that's the address. So he decided, "I'm gonna go get birkas haprzah from the Lubavitcher Rebbe." So he came to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe, talking about the Friediker Rebbe. During Mincha. They were davening Mincha. And, uh, Ali Tveshirov, he came over to the Rebbe, walked over to him and said he wants to meet with him after Shabbos. "Havdalah? Havdalah?" After Havdalah, he invited him inside to his room, and, uh, he said to him, "I decided I'm gonna leave Russia, and we are on the way now. We're on the way to Baku, and here is how we're gonna go, and I want a birkas prahzah." And he said to him, "If I was still in Lita, I would ask my rebbe, Reb Burel Leibovitz, for a birkas prahzah. But I'm in Russia now. The mesirat nefesh of, uh, that we need in Russia to be able to survive is not, is not doable. So meila I'm off to Eretz Yisrael. I want a birkas prahzah." So the Rebbe said to him, "A Jew like you is not allowed to leave Russia." And they spent a good hour arguing. He said, "I need to leave Russia for my children." Finally, the Rebbe said to him, "If you take care of Ter-- the Re-- If you take care of the Aibishter's children, the Aibishter

23:58 Speaker 1 will take care of yours." "Thank you, Rebbe. A birkas prahzah?" He didn't give him a birkas prahzah. And he said, "" He said, "Rebbe, I've got to rush. I gotta get into line to buy a ticket to be able to go from here, from Rostov to Baku, and the train leaves early in the morning. I have to go late at night, stand in line to get a train ticket." The Rebbe said again, "You won't miss anything. Don't worry." He kept him there for a while. When he left, came back to his, uh, kvartir, to his, the whole, the room that they were, the place they were staying, and macht havdalah and he ran to buy a ticket. It's too late. The ticket office had closed, and they weren't opening up until three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning. Okay. So you have to be there at the ticket line early in the morning with Skiminton. When he came early in the morning to the ticket line, he stood in line waiting to buy a ticket, and somebody said to him, "You're going to Baku? Do you know what happened? Come here. I'm gonna tell you." He said, "I can't come anywhere. I'm staying in line. I need to buy a ticket." "No, no." And he pulled him out of line, and he said to him, "I want you to know, you're not the first. Others had gone with the same idea, and the NKVD came, arrested them, and took away

25:27 Speaker 1 their children. Do you know what that means?" Now, when NKVD takes away your children, they put them in, into a, uh, c- a communist orphanage. You forget about your children, and you'll be lucky if you get out of, uh, the trial alive. You can't go. He heard that, said, "what am I gonna do now?" He decided, we can't go anywhere, we have to go back. He came back home, and he took-- home to, to where they were staying, and he told his wife, "This is what's going on, we can't go. We're stuck. We're stuck. I'm going back to Lubavitcher Rebbe. Now I'm going back." So he went back to the Rebbe, and he said to him, "Okay, ." Y- as a result of my being late, I-- my children were saved, et cetera. What should I do now? N- now I need a netzer. So he said, around Kyiv, he, he has information that around Kyiv there are many little towns looking for Rabbonim, and some of them are very productive towns. Couple of hundred, uh, people living in the town, a shul or two, there's a mikveh. Find a position over there. If you go to Kyiv, I'm sure you'll find a position. "" One position, another position, and he settled in a town called Ksavrov, and he was known for the next t- fifteen years as the Ksavroverov.

26:54 Speaker 3 Sure. What do you do with your kids?

26:58 Speaker 1 The children, we have no alternative. There's only one yeshiva functioning underground in Makhteirs, Lubavitch. So first he sent my uncle, my-- who's six years older than my father, Tofresh Betes, he sent him to Nevel, 1929. And then a year later, he sent my father before bar mitzvah, he sent him away from home. Sit and learn. And my father was goyim in Kalmkom Tayla from 1930 until 1938. Every couple of months in another town. He was arrested three times. He was jailed, ran from town to town.

27:38 Speaker 3 Your father?

27:39 Speaker 1 My father ran from town to town.

27:42 Speaker 3 So you basically-- So your father basically grew up as, as Lubavitch in Temrit Chutmin.

27:46 Speaker 1 Sure. My father and my uncle were both-- they, they grew up in Temrit Chutmin.

27:48 Speaker 3 Did your grandfather also become closer to-

27:51 Speaker 1 Came much closer to Lubavitch for Schneur Zalman. So he learned Chassidus already, and, uh, he became close to Lubavitch.

27:59 Speaker 3 And his kids-

27:59 Speaker 1 Close to Chassidus. The kids were all, uh, Chassidim.

28:03 Speaker 3 Became Chassidim, basically. Okay. S-

28:07 Speaker 1 My aunts, uh, married people who were all frum Yidden, Rabbonim shikinder. Not love davka Lubavitch, but, um, all his children came safely, later on left the Soviet Union, were able to build families, gezunterhait. The Eibishter took care of my grandfather's ene klach, his children and his ene klach.

28:28 Speaker 3 Right. Okay. So the f-- So he ended up-

28:32 Speaker 1 I must tell you another story. I'm not done. I'm not done.

28:35 Speaker 3 Go ahead. Go ahead.

28:36 Speaker 1 So Beis Allah, my grandfather was arrested the same time as my other grandfather was arrested after Purim Tofresh Betes nineteen twenty-- nineteen thirty-nine. So, uh, and there-- somebody was arrested at trial or whatever, he's sentenced to, sentenced to, to golus, to exile. You are told that by such and such a date, at such and such a train, you will be present, and you will go travel for the next forty-eight hours to get to this town, and there you'll check in with the police. If you don't check in with the police, we will arrest you again. We'll find you, we arrest you again, and you'll be shot, 'cause you're a deserter then. So he came to the train station. What can you do at that time? And he was sent to a town, a little shtetl called, uh, Yanikugan, in Kazakhstan, deep in Kazakhstan. Comes to the train station, who does he meet? The Yakatrizina- Yakatrizina Ksavroverov, Rav Leivick Schneerson, whom he knew from Hasifas Harabonim.

29:41 Speaker 3 He was arrested at the same time.

29:42 Speaker 1 Same time, sent on the same train, and he was going to Chile, a, a town which was fifteen kilometers from Yanikugan. So they spent the next forty-eight hours together, sitting together, migret, uh, whatever. I wasn't privy to it, and I didn't hear it from, from anybody who was, so. But they spent the next forty-eight hours together. My grandfather instinctively knew that Rav Leivick would not be able to settle himself in a little village, a dusty village. Nobody there other than the natives, that they specially did that. To find shelter and then to find food, it was very difficult. They had hoped that these people would eventually just die out. So my grandfather decided he was gonna help him, somehow or other. So when he came to Yanikugan-

30:34 Speaker 3 You're saying he, he saw-

30:36 Speaker 1 Rav Leivick.

30:37 Speaker 3 Yeah, but he saw that, that the Rebbe's father was-

30:39 Speaker 1 The Rebbe's father was aruch dezikirit. To go and buy a few potatoes, to find and haggle with some shikse for a few potatoes, and then to cook the potato and have something to eat, it was-- it'd be very, very difficult for him.

30:52 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

30:54 Speaker 1 So he decided the first week he was there to illegally get onto a train. Since it was only fifteen vyost, fifteen kilometers, he hoped nobody would catch him, because it was illegal. You're not allowed to leave your town. And he would bring Reb Leivick something to eat. So for the next three months, until the rebbetzin came, every week he would come, he would buy a few potatoes, make a kugel, and come with a kugel to Reb Leivick, and that's what he ate for the rest of the week. Sometimes an egg, you know? That was the, the provisions that they had. In fact, the first week that the rebbetzin came, my grandfather came as well. My father also went a couple of times. Um, so she asked him, "How did you get along?" She knew that he would have a hard time with this. So he said, "Elyanovi took care of me." And Friday, when my grandfather walked in, he said, "Oh, it is Elyanovi coming." How do I know this story? 'Cause the rebbetzin, the Rebbe's mother, told it to my father.

32:10 Speaker 3 Much later, yeah.

32:11 Speaker 1 When we came to America.

32:12 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

32:13 Speaker 1 Which is why we had a relationship with, uh, the Rebbe's mother and with the, with the rebbetzin, also a relationship as a result of that.

32:22 Speaker 3 Right. So they, you, they, they, they spoke about it to you, about how your, your grand-- to, to your father whatever, how your grandfather would, uh-

32:29 Speaker 1 She, she told that to my... She told it later to my- But we had-- We were refugees in the, uh-

32:37 Speaker 3 We're skipping ahead a little bit. We'll, we'll go back.

32:38 Speaker 1 Just for one moment.

32:39 Speaker 3 Yeah.

32:39 Speaker 1 We were refugees in Pucking, and we were assigned a small room in a large barrack. 20 families were assigned to a single room, and the single room was just enough to put two beds on either side of the, of the, uh, little tiny room. And it just so happened that the Rebbe's mother, Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, was in the next room. So you can imagine that my parents had a relationship with her, especially since sh-she knew my father from, uh, from Russia. Knew my father that helped, uh, the Reb Leivick.

33:09 Speaker 3 Kazakhstan, yeah.

33:10 Speaker 1 Yeah. So-

33:11 Speaker 3 There's a-- Isn't there something from the rebbetzin also with you, uh-

33:14 Speaker 1 Yes

33:14 Speaker 3 ... regarding this?

33:15 Speaker 1 Let's say we're skipping ahead now 40 years.

33:17 Speaker 3 We're skipping 40 years-

33:18 Speaker 1 Yeah

33:18 Speaker 3 ... but it's, it's on topic, so-

33:19 Speaker 1 Yeah

33:19 Speaker 3 ... yeah, we'll go, we'll go back.

33:20 Speaker 1 Yes.

33:20 Speaker 3 How it helped Koch.

33:21 Speaker 1 The the rebbetzin told, uh, Chesed Halbershtam when I asked whether or not she would authenticate a painting that I painted of the Rebbe Rashab. So he said, uh, "Will you take a look at it?" So she said, "Of course, I'll take a look at it. I owe them.

33:40 Speaker 3 So she was gonna-

33:48 Speaker 1 So-

33:48 Speaker 3 She was willing to look at your painting of the, of the Rebbe Rashab.

33:50 Speaker 1 She knew me anyway because I'd met her when, whenever we talked.

33:53 Speaker 3 But she said as you called-

33:55 Speaker 1 But she said-

33:56 Speaker 3 ... that your family

35:48 Speaker 1 ...

35:48 Speaker 3 Almata.

35:49 Speaker 1 Almata. And that's how he moved to Almata. From Moshe Kalikov's daughter, the communist who was there because my grandfather, uh, and he moved to Almata.

35:58 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

35:59 Speaker 1 But already, he, he already had cancer at that time. So-

36:03 Speaker 3 The Rebbe's father.

36:03 Speaker 1 Yeah.

36:04 Speaker 3 Yeah.

36:04 Speaker 1 So he needed-- There wa-- He didn't have to have any Wow. Okay.

37:15 Speaker 3 So, uh, we have, uh, our, our life is pretty, uh-

37:19 Speaker 1 Then my mo- father's family-

37:20 Speaker 3 We com- we, we complain if we don't have, uh-

37:22 Speaker 1 Yeah

37:22 Speaker 3 ... the right, the right food-

37:23 Speaker 1 There's many of us

37:23 Speaker 3 ... uh, the right restaurant is not good-

37:25 Speaker 1 Right

37:25 Speaker 3 ... we're complaining about it.

37:26 Speaker 1 Right.

37:28 Speaker 3 Okay. So, so your parents got, get... Your parents, your, your father's side of the family-

37:33 Speaker 1 My, my mother's family moved to, uh, to Samarkand as soon as the war began.

37:41 Speaker 3 All, all the children, like, moved there, yeah.

37:43 Speaker 1 Well, they were one of the first, because Samarkand was a, a little bit safer, even though they arrested two of my uncles and, uh, sent them to the army. Three of my uncles.

37:52 Speaker 3 In Samarkand?

37:53 Speaker 1 From Samarkand, yeah. But it was a safe place, at least for the women.

37:57 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

37:59 Speaker 1 And my father's family, after my grandfather died, moved to Tashkent.

38:03 Speaker 3 That's nearby.

38:05 Speaker 1 Nearby, yeah. Nearby. An hour by plane nearby, more or less. 500 miles apart.

38:11 Speaker 3 Okay.

38:13 Speaker 1 For Lubavitch, it's in Crown Heights, it's nearby. You know, like, we're almost near Chicago.

38:17 Speaker 3 Right.

38:17 Speaker 1 Right. There was a Yid who used to travel all the time back and forth. His name was Benjie Shemtov. Benjie lived in, in Tashkent, but tzaddik sefaru, he also took care to make sure everybody was doing the right thing in Samarkand.

38:31 Speaker 3 Seems like he never stayed at one place.

38:33 Speaker 1 Benjie Shemtov was incapable of staying in one place. Like a maid's son. I know him from London. He was incapable.

38:41 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

38:41 Speaker 1 At any rate, he made a shidduch with my parents.

38:43 Speaker 3 He's a chassan.

38:44 Speaker 1 Yeah. My father knew my mother's family because he learned together with my uncles.

38:48 Speaker 3 His brothers.

38:49 Speaker 1 So.

38:50 Speaker 3 So they got married in Samarkand or Tashkent?

38:52 Speaker 1 Married in Samarkand, and I was born in Tashkent.

38:56 Speaker 3 So they, they got married in Samarkand, they moved to Tashkent.

38:58 Speaker 1 In Tashkent I was born, yeah.

38:59 Speaker 3 And you were born there.

39:00 Speaker 1 In Tashkent. And then with the Bricha, my, my father was one of the first who said, "We have to get out of here. Nowhere to stay, nowhere to, to, to hide here."

39:08 Speaker 3 There was a whole thing. They didn't know if they, if they should, they shouldn't, right?

39:13 Speaker 1 Whatever. Before the Bezenasats, if you know all the history, my father said, "We're out of here."

39:18 Speaker 3 Right away.

39:19 Speaker 1 He left immediately.

39:21 Speaker 3 So you're, like, a baby when this is happening?

39:23 Speaker 1 I was a baby, and they made, like everybody else, false papers.

39:28 Speaker 3 How, how was it, like, you're born in, in, in, uh, in Tashkent? It's like a normal, like, situation? Like, you were born-

39:34 Speaker 1 What normal? How normal?

39:35 Speaker 3 Tell me about it. Like, what's going on? How-

39:36 Speaker 1 I, I never was in Tashkent before. My mother told me the hospital was a little building with big open rooms, and there were a bunch of beds that the nurses running around, and a few doctors here and there, of course. What do you think they had there?

39:51 Speaker 3 They know how to deliver a baby.

39:55 Speaker 1 The basic licking.

39:58 Speaker 3 Okay. So, so he decides, your parents decide that they're going on the... This is the Ashalanen.

40:04 Speaker 1 The Ashalanen, Ashalanen, and we were one of the first out. We got out in Elul 5705.

40:10 Speaker 3 What happened, what happened on the, on the way, on the way out?

40:15 Speaker 1 A thousand and one night. There are a thousand stories to be told. At every step of the way there were nisim.

40:21 Speaker 3 So give me some of them.

40:22 Speaker 1 Uh, the bottom line is we got out.

40:24 Speaker 3 There's not no nisim with you?

40:26 Speaker 1 Bottom line is we got out. Nisim with me, I had pneumonia as a baby and, uh, my bris was in, uh, Marina Roshe in Moscow when I was who knows how old, and my pidyon haben, it finished again.

40:38 Speaker 3 How'd they get to, to Moscow?

40:40 Speaker 1 You have to travel through Moscow in order to get to the Polish border.

40:43 Speaker 3 And that's it.

40:44 Speaker 1 That was the way to get out.

40:46 Speaker 3 After, after Lemberg, before Lemberg?

40:48 Speaker 1 Before Lemberg, went to Moscow. From Moscow you traveled to, to Lemberg.

40:52 Speaker 3 So you had pneumonia as a baby. Okay. You're-

40:55 Speaker 1 My father w- heard that from the, from the doctors there that they, they're in America, they found a way to, to heal this kind of, of pneumonia. Uh, you need penicillin. Penicillin? W- where, where do you get penicillin in post-war Kazakhstan? So they told him, "Listen, there are American pilots who fly into the airport in, uh, in Tashkent every once in a while. Go to the airport, see if you can find somebody who knows an, uh, if an American pilot is flying in. American pilots generally have penicillin with them just in case they get sick, and tell him a story maybe." And it just so happened there's my father went to the airport. In the airport he found somebody who spoke a little bit of English, and she went and found out that there was a pilot who just arrived, and the pilot had penicillin. He took the penicillin, took it to the hospital, and I'm here.

41:50 Speaker 3 And what happened on the train with you?

41:53 Speaker 1 On the trains, people were thrown off the trains. Um, remember you were all... You had fake passports, so you had to remember your names. My mother didn't remember her name, the name given to her on a passport in four minutes. You look at your name, "Okay, that's my name." So they arranged for birth dates. The birth dates should all be an easy birthday to remember. So I was born on 5/5, and my uncle was born on 5/5, and my father was born on 5/5, May 5th. Easy to remember, 5/5, I'm finished. At any rate, you forget your name, you can be thrown off the, uh, the train. We got through. Baruch Hashem, we got through, and into Poland. In Poland there were nisim. The Polish Goyim-

42:43 Speaker 3 You're skipping a s- you're skipping something?

42:45 Speaker 1 A lot.

42:45 Speaker 3 Yeah. Okay.

42:46 Speaker 1 The Polish Goyim were as antisemitic after the war as the Germans were before the war. They hated Jews, and when they saw some Zhid come off the train, they followed them, and it was my father, mother, and me, uh, my uncle Cheskel and his wife, and my cousin Nochem, and a few others were in a small place together, small hotel-like together. And they came and they stormed the hotel and they want the Jews So they hid, they hid in a refrigerator. Because the refrigerator had a locked door on the outside, which they were afraid they would break in, but there were some bones in the refrigerator, so they put the bones in the lock inside so they wouldn't be able to open the door, and they spent all night. They looked for an ax, and, uh, they tried to break the door to kill the Yidi, to kill the Jews. They were drinking in the middle, got more shikya. Bottom line is, at the end, they were thrown out. They left or thrown out of there, and the three families survived.

43:57 Speaker 3 Wow.

43:57 Speaker 1 That's one of many.

44:00 Speaker 3 Okay, so they end up eventually in-

44:02 Speaker 1 In Pucking

44:02 Speaker 3 ... in the DP camp in Pucking.

44:04 Speaker 1 In Pucking.

44:05 Speaker 3 So you started saying about, uh, Rebbetzin Hannah in Pucking. Does this-

44:10 Speaker 1 She told me a story

44:12 Speaker 3 So-

44:12 Speaker 1 The Rebbetzin told me a story. Um-

44:16 Speaker 3 So y- c- we're gonna... This is not an order, but could you give the context? Like, w- when did she tell you? Like what-

44:21 Speaker 1 She told me this story. My bar mitzvah was on a Friday, and Shabbos I'm going to shul. I'm on Kingston Avenue between President and Union, and I met her. Now, I'd been in the house a number of times. I delivered shalach manos to the Rebbetzin. She knew me. Uh, I would say, uh, uh, "Good morning" or "Good Shabbos," certainly, to her, and she would respond, and she would ask me something. So I, I was walking, and I saw her in the street. So I said, "Good Shabbos" to her, and she answered, "Good Shabbos." And because I knew her a little bit, I said, "" Oh, so she showered me with broches. And then she says to me, "Do you remember I was chasing you around in Pucking?" Now, in Pucking I was a year old, so I wouldn't remember anything like that. So she said to me, "Your mother would let you outside, and you ran around, but you had a little hat on, and you tore the hat off if you didn't like it. So I would run after you and put your hat on because I heard from my husband that a child should not go outside without kipa rosh at the earliest age because it's nega'at yirat shamayim. So therefore, I would chase you around to put your yarmul- put your hat on."

45:40 Speaker 3 Hmm.

45:41 Speaker 1 That's how she told me that story. I was mefarsim the story all over the place, and like many things, you know, it just falls by the wayside.

45:48 Speaker 3 People don't do it the same.

45:49 Speaker 1 See? Yeah. Well, it's a little boy. A little-

45:52 Speaker 3 I think, I think I read somewhere that's from the Bashemter or something.

45:55 Speaker 1 It's hagim moreh, hagim moreh on Sar Ashbo. It's not negiah all the things.

46:00 Speaker 3 It's like a

46:02 Speaker 1 Uh, th- the main thing is it's a vov and a zayis. Few people know it, and Bashemter said it, and Reb Leivik told the Rebbetzin obviously that the children shouldn't go outside at the earliest age without a kipa rosh. So

46:39 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

46:40 Speaker 1 Anyway, but that's how it is.

46:41 Speaker 3 Okay. So, so you didn't... So w- what was happening? You don't really remember Pucking, but what... So I guess what happened after is how do you get from Pucking to where, to-

46:52 Speaker 1 Pucking, my father learned in the kollel. There was a kollel there for eight months, and they were paid by the joint to sit and learn. My father was always a talmid chacham and always learned. He was-- They said he was the best talmid of all the, the talmidim in the Yeshivas Marches. The only competition he had was his chaver. Hillel Perlzner was a little bit also, uh, but they were, they were the, the peer at Mimim in Nigla of all those who learned in Marches. Then he came to Pucking, so he learned. I had an uncle, my grandfather had a brother who became a shochet, and he moved to England, to London.

47:35 Speaker 3 Your grandfather Kaplan.

47:36 Speaker 1 He moved to Eng- to London. So the families decided, my uncles and my aunts, that my father should go to London and see for-- They knew that he had died. Maybe there's a yerusha. So he came to England, and he... My grandfather, the shochet for that, what was then the London Bezdin. The Av Bezdin was Chatzkel Abramsky. Do you know that?

48:03 Speaker 3 Yeah. I, I, I heard some... There's a whole story with the shochet in Ireland, whatever-

48:08 Speaker 1 Yes

48:09 Speaker 3 ... he was involved in.

48:09 Speaker 1 Chatzkel Abramsky. So my father went to see Reb Chatzkel Abramsky, and he said, "Yes, I have a yerusha. I have it. I'm the one. The pkad is bamir." And then they started talking and learning. So he said, ". What are you doing over there? Come here. I'll give you a rabonus." My father went back to, to France, where we were at the time, and he told his family, "Here's the yerusha. I'm gonna write to the Rebbe to see whether or not maybe I should move to London." Everybody was writing then whether they should move to, uh, to London, to, to anywhere.

48:43 Speaker 3 Or wherever.

48:43 Speaker 1 Where to go, where to settle. So he got a letter from the Rebbe. Yes, he should move there. He should take the position, et cetera, et cetera. So-

48:50 Speaker 3 What, what did he write to the Rebbe? Like, like there was a-

48:53 Speaker 1 The first letter everybody wrote as soon as they got out of Russia-

48:57 Speaker 3 They're not used to this. They can't write letters when they're in Russia, right?

49:00 Speaker 1 They-- Can't write letters to the Rebbe in, in America from Russia. But as soon as they got out into the free world, everybody wrote to the Rebbe. So my father wrote to the Friediker Rebbe, this is in Tof Shin Zayin, saying, "I don't know what my askanus is. I never met the Rebbe. And so how can I be mekushar with the Rebbe?" So the Rebbe responded, ". I remember him, him, you meaning, very well," because all the Timimin sent photographs to the Rebbe from Russia. They smuggled them out of Russia and sent them to the Rebbe. So the Rebbe has photographs of all the Timimin. "." And then he got reports also, which he smuggled out of Russia. "."

49:53 Speaker 3 So he never physically, he never saw the Friediker Rebbe.

49:55 Speaker 1 No.

49:55 Speaker 3 Never.

49:56 Speaker 1 And then he added, "The fact that you're asking me about the askanus is, askanus is by learning my Torah."

50:04 Speaker 3 Hmm.

50:06 Speaker 1 The picture that my father sent to the Friediker Rebbe was in the Rebbe's library, and Berl Levin gave me the picture, gave me the photograph after Gimel Tammuz.

50:18 Speaker 3 Wow.

50:18 Speaker 1 He went through the, all the archives.

50:19 Speaker 3 Copy?

50:21 Speaker 1 Not a copy.

50:21 Speaker 3 Original.

50:22 Speaker 1 The original copy with Chaim Luberman's hand- handwriting, with my father, my, my father's name on the back of the photo.

50:29 Speaker 3 So this is the picture that the Friediker Rebbe-

50:30 Speaker 1 It is the picture. Sure.

50:35 Speaker 3 I think it would, it would, I think it would sit in the, in the Friediker Rebbe's desk, ep- something.

50:40 Speaker 1 I heard all kinds of bobemeises.

50:44 Speaker 3 Bobemeises are unverified stories.

50:46 Speaker 1 What I saw, I know. What I heard from in the Monken Nerman, I know. What's mit de tsiltingas, they said, he said, you know, it doesn't mean anything.

50:53 Speaker 3 Yeah. Okay. So he wrote to the Rebbe moving to, to the Friediker Rebbe moving to London.

50:58 Speaker 1 He asked whether he should move to London, we moved to London. The abones in the east si- lower East End of London didn't last very long. If you know anything about the East End of London.

51:12 Speaker 3 I don't.

51:12 Speaker 1 It was a slum-

51:13 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

51:14 Speaker 1 ... where Yin lived, uh, from about 1910, but by 1940, anybody who could had left. There were a couple of old shuls, some old people. This is 1950.

51:25 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

51:26 Speaker 1 So by 1950, there was very little left there. So my father became a Rosh Yeshiva in Schneider's Yeshiva. Heard of Schneider's Yeshiva?

51:33 Speaker 3 No.

51:34 Speaker 1 Okay. That was the yeshiva that lived through the, uh-

51:37 Speaker 3 Elitz in London

51:38 Speaker 1 ... in London.

51:38 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. So, so you, you're, so you spent a number of years in London, so that's probably your formative memories, uh, growing up in London.

51:48 Speaker 1 I had, my first memories are from London. My very first memory, very, very first, it was such a shocking thing, was from Yud Aleph Shevat Tof Shin Yud. My father took me then from the East End of London to the new neighborhood of Stanford Hill, where Reb Ben Zion Shemtov lived, and the families, the few Lubavitcher families had all gotten together to sit shiva for the, for an hour in Reb Ben Zion Shemtov's house, 89 Credit Road. So I remember coming into the house, I was a child of four, and it was dark, and there was s- si- sounds of crying and wailing, and, uh, it shocked me. I remember saying to my father, I remember this, "Nem ir arois fun daned. Ich vil dan nit zayn." Take me out of here. I don't want to be here. And he picked me up, and he too was crying, and it shocked me so. I didn't see my father cry ever. My father's crying heavy tears, and everybody's crying around him. I want out of here. That's my first memory. Yud Aleph Shevat Tof Shin Yud.

53:12 Speaker 3 And your, and your father never saw the Friediker Rebbe ever?

53:15 Speaker 1 No.

53:18 Speaker 3 Um, okay. So how did... Uh, I'm not done with this.

53:23 Speaker 1 Go ahead. Don't rush. Remember there were fa- families who came out of Russia, and then there were bochurim and lonely girls who came out of Russia by themselves, and weddings were arranged. So there was a bocher who, uh, left Russia. His mother was one of those who organized the whole Bricha, Mume Sorre, Sorre Askin, Kates, Kates Elmoing. And her son, Yehoshua Heichka, was a bocher, and he was meeting a girl in London. He met the girl. Her, her name was, was whatever, unimportant. Uh, and they were getting married. So Heichka lived in our house for the few months between the time that he got engaged to the time that he married Blima Ashkenazi. So during that time, I mean, I, I got to know him very well. When was the wedding set for? It was set for, uh, immediately after Purim of Tof Shin Yud.

54:38 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

54:41 Speaker 1 Here, for Yud Shevat in America, Reb, uh, Yitzchak Dubov was here for the marriage of his son, Label. That you know?

54:52 Speaker 3 I do, yeah.

54:53 Speaker 1 Hear about it. So Reb Yitzchak Dubov told me this story, so I'm, I'm a clichani of this, or clichani really from him. And he told me the following. I decided... He knew the Rebbe from, from Riga. He met the Rebbe before, and he was enchanted by the Rebbe. A goyen, he was enchanted by him. So he came to America for the chasuna, and immediately after, shiva. And the Friediker Rebbe davened on Monday after the levaya, and then on Tuesday. Tuesday, he decided, "I want to watch him." You know, everybody is shaken, but they're also thinking about the future. "Ich vil zem vos to the Ramash." I want to look at the Ramash. So he positioned himself upstairs in the zal, uh, a few feet away from the chazan. The chazan stood where the chazan where the, uh, the amud is today. But then, if you remember, there's a door, then there's a little space, and a wall that juts out. That was where the Friediker Rebbe's shtender used to stand. So he stood over there, and he watched the Rebbe during davening. And he's watching him daven. He doesn't see anything extraordinary. But then he sees as he's watching him, he doesn't clap selach lanu. He sees, he's saying, "Should I say never clap selach lanu? Pele? Selach lanu?" Then he saw that after the Shir Shel Yom, he covered himself with his tallis, and he started to play around with something over there, and it took a while before he said Kaddish. Okay. What's

56:37 Speaker 1 tutel dom? And then he saw that for Mishnais at the end of davening, after he finished Mishnais, HaMachanene Hakashema, he ran, ran his hand over his forehead, and he said something. So he wondered, "What's he saying there? Alehu hamivriz, mizak makaddesh, but privately..." The Rebbe said at the end of that davening, even though you don't make hispedim, it's printed, everybody can see it, with a tilt maisis. The hagdomet to the story, it's printed, it says we don't remember the order of the stories. So the ones who wrote it down don't remember, but Rab- Rab Yitzchak Dubov does remember. The first thing he said was that I heard from my, from the shver that the day that you don't say tachnun or a place you don't say tachnun, you don't clap selach lanu. So he said, "Oh, whoa, that was interesting." Then he followed up with something which was way out of the blue. People who put on four pair of tefillin changed the shalosh of Rashi for the Shemu Shiraabe after the Shir Shel Yom. What? The second? And why would the Rebbe tell us now? And the Rebbe said, "Ich aber yat, but the shver, you talk to Azayna Plitz, it's mainly, it's my shver's problem, because you have to have a guf noki biyesa." Take a look what it says in the Sikha. And then the kicker was when he said-

58:06 Speaker 3 He admitted to put it on.

58:08 Speaker 1 I'm sorry?

58:09 Speaker 3 The Rebbe said he admitted to put it on.

58:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

58:11 Speaker 3 Yeah.

58:12 Speaker 1 And then he said that after we finish the HaMachanene Hakashema, the shver used to run his head, his hand over his forehead and say a shul of Tanya. Dr. Ruch HaKedesht so open, so open. He became a Hasid immediately. He didn't need any cr- convincing. When he came back to London by boat, so it's already in the middle of Shleshin, and he was met then with all the older Hasidim who were in England. The eldest of them was Rab Shmul Rein, the uncle of, uh, the Yafi family, who was from the elder, older than Temchat Mim. And there was Rab Shmul. You know any of the people? Remember him?

59:00 Speaker 3 Well, I happened to ju- I told, I told that I interviewed Gurkov.

59:03 Speaker 1 Okay.

59:03 Speaker 3 So he, he was also in London, so he spoke to-

59:05 Speaker 1 Gurkov was a yunge mande.

59:06 Speaker 3 He spoke to him about Shmul Rein.

59:07 Speaker 1 Ah, Shmul Rein. Okay.

59:08 Speaker 3 He used to learn with him. Yeah.

59:10 Speaker 1 Uh, Gurkov was younger than Shmul Rein, but all right.

59:13 Speaker 3 Yeah, he, they used to learn with him.

59:14 Speaker 1 Ah, he'd learn with him.

59:15 Speaker 3 Yeah.

59:16 Speaker 1 Okay. Uh, there was Rab Shmul Grossman, Osher Nikolaeva's son was there. Uh, a few other elder. And Rab Dubov came and told him, "Here's the story as I saw it."

59:30 Speaker 3 And Bensher was there also?

59:32 Speaker 1 Bensher converted then. L'chatchilah Bensher was not necessarily a Hasid of the Rebbe's.

59:37 Speaker 3 I think some people deny that, but yeah.

59:39 Speaker 1 I don't care what Hashem does deny. But my father told me what he did, what he said to him, so I'm not... That's not negea.

59:44 Speaker 3 Okay.

59:44 Speaker 1 Yeah, they can deny it. Rab Sh- Rab Yitzchak Dubov made him far a Hasid. Rab Yitzchak Dubov came with this maise, and it blew everybody away. And they decided that they were gonna write a, uh, a ksav is kasheris. Of course, Bensher right away heard ksav is kasheris. I'm gonna be larosh, you know. He'll organize it, and he'll get all the people to sign, and, and they sent the first ksav is kasheris that came to the Rebbe, was in Nisan Tov Sheinyud, and it came from England.

1:00:11 Speaker 3 That was the first one.

1:00:13 Speaker 1 What I remember was that Heischke Raskin got married. And how do I know it's true? My memories are good. Because I remembered that the Kalle Blime Ele Hashem pushed me off her gown. I was stepping on her gown, and she pushed me off the gown. I couldn't picture it. I married a son in London, and my parents stayed in Heischke's house. And when I came to the house, they showed me their wedding album. And the wedding album is a picture of me standing next to the Kalle, and I stepped on the gown then.

1:00:50 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:00:51 Speaker 1 So I remember, I remember the Hasidim, in spite of that four years old. What did I remember? I remember there were speeches and speeches, and there wasn't much dancing. Speeches and speeches. So I ack- inquired about it later on. What were the speeches about? So here is the speech that was most important. Rab Shmul Rein got up, and he said there was a big Olam there because she was a Hungarian. Hungarian unmutzelne, she was in the camps. And, uh, Heischke Raskin came with the bricha. Achas and Kalle both yesaimim. So all of London was there, whatever London was at the time, but all of London was there. Rab Shmul Rein got up, and he said, "The Gemara said that a Melech ben Melech doesn't need Meshecha. Malchus Bizdovid. If it was the son of a Melech, Malchus Bizdovid, they were not Meshechim with olive oil. Why? Because kesar hulmosi, he put on the crown, and the crown fit." So Rashi explains the crown fit, the, the way the sh- the skull was shaped, the crown fit on snugly. It didn't have to do anything else. Kritz achritz b'meach. That what, that's what, uh, Rashi says. So he says, "Die ganze Welt baduyot." Everybody is mourning the fact that Lubavitch Rebe- the Lubavitch Rebbe is gone. Lubavitch baduyot, we don't have a Rebbe. So I want to tell you, the avelus goes on, and we lost a Rebbe, but I want the whole world to know that we have a Rebbe. Kesser hu mose. He put

1:02:40 Speaker 1 on the crown, and it fits. And he said they saw moifsim from him right away in shiva. And Rabbi Dubov was there, and he was an eidus, an eid, reiya to this, these moifsim. So meila hav besura toiva for the whole world. Lubavitch has a Rebbe. Od tov shin yud.

1:03:04 Speaker 3 Wow. Amazing. So this is the, this is the environment.

1:03:11 Speaker 1 That's the environment.

1:03:14 Speaker 3 Okay. So how do you a-

1:03:15 Speaker 1 I, I didn't let you ask very many questions.

1:03:17 Speaker 3 That's fine. Yeah.

1:03:18 Speaker 1 I'm monopolizing the show.

1:03:19 Speaker 3 My goal is not to ask too many questions.

1:03:21 Speaker 1 Oh.

1:03:22 Speaker 3 So how did you get to the Rebbe, to, to New York? How did, how did this happen?

1:03:28 Speaker 1 My father was always looking for a position. Bezhnitces, those who were refugees, had a very hard time settling after the war. Very few was-- had an easy time getting parnasah. So my father first was, has Rabbonus, whatever it was, and then he was a Rosh Yeshiva in Schneiders, and he couldn't pay him either. And ben Hashem tavah tamiret hashidach, that there's a cheder in Manchester that, uh, is looking for somebody to be a melamed, and they wanna pay the highest. Go up there and interview for it. See if they'll hire you. So we moved to Manchester for a few years. And the talmidim of that cheder today are tug dol Israel, so-called. One is the Horodanker Rebbe, who's sick now, a younger chaver of mine, Rebbach Zick, and his older brother is Rebbe, Rabbi Chido Weiss, the Goisadayan. So Chido Weiss, the chaver, childhood chaver, we learned together.

1:04:28 Speaker 3 In Manchester?

1:04:30 Speaker 1 In Manchester. Whenever he, he's here in America, he calls me. I've-- invited me to chasanas, et cetera. Ven rifne chof a chasana, when he invites me, I sit at the table with alle groise rebbes.

1:04:42 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. Okay. So what happened?

1:04:48 Speaker 1 Through melamedah for a few years, it's get tachles, why, what are you gonna do for, for chil-- children? Veda af alos kir vadanet. So tov shin tes zayin he came to America and tried to have his status of one kind or another, and then he brought us in tov shin yud zayin.

1:05:04 Speaker 3 So you moved to Crown Heights?

1:05:05 Speaker 1 So we moved to Crown Heights.

1:05:08 Speaker 3 How, how old are you at this point?

1:05:09 Speaker 1 I was 11 years old, tov shin yud zayin when we moved to Crown Heights.

1:05:11 Speaker 3 So 11 years old, you show up to Crown Heights.

1:05:15 Speaker 1 In the Lubavitch Yeshiva.

1:05:16 Speaker 3 In Bedford.

1:05:17 Speaker 1 In Bedford Avenue, corner Dean Street, in a class that had about six or seven Lubavitch kids out of 20. The majority of them were Frum.

1:05:28 Speaker 3 So what do you-- what, what was your early experiences from coming to New York?

1:05:32 Speaker 1 Listen, we had three addresses when I was a child. One address was Bedford Avenue, corner Dean Street, 19 Grant Square. Second was 77 Eastern Parkway, and then there was a house where you lived. And we went from one to the other to the other. There wasn't anything in between.

1:05:55 Speaker 3 I imagine there weren't so many kids in Crown Heights then.

1:05:58 Speaker 1 My age, there were half a dozen altogether, a year older, half a year younger. A year younger, my brother's, uh, three years younger than me, so he, he had, uh, 10 kids, 10 Lubavitch kids. Lubavitch was very, very small.

1:06:14 Speaker 3 So what was it like by the b- by the-- in, in the address of 770?

1:06:18 Speaker 1 770 was... How big was 770? There were 40 Bochurim, maybe 50 at times. We knew all the Bochurim, and the Bochurim knew us as kids. We'd come from Bedford Avenue, and, uh, if we didn't take a train home, we walked. It's a 20-minute walk. Uh, we walked to came into 770 to see what's happening, and we bothered the Bochurim. No place to go but-

1:06:40 Speaker 3 You didn't go home. You went to 770.

1:06:42 Speaker 1 Sometimes. Not, I think everywhere. Went home, too. Obviously, we took buses home. We had bus passes, and we went home. But when we felt like it, we came to 770. Shabbos was in 770, and, uh, that was the address. We hung around. There was a chuppah in 770, so everybody came. To the kids, if you get out of the house, you came to the chuppah.

1:07:04 Speaker 3 Just raised the whole s-small Lubavitch at the time.

1:07:07 Speaker 1 That was our, that was our world.

1:07:08 Speaker 3 So, like, you remember, like, the Rebbe being, um, saying the kiddush or-

1:07:11 Speaker 1 Sure. Said kiddush many times. Many times.

1:07:18 Speaker 3 I saw there's a, there's a picture in Mekadesht Yisroel. There's a bunch of people wearing ties. I think Shloime Zachi's in it and whatever. They're wearing ties-

1:07:26 Speaker 1 Everybody wore ties with the Zachi picture

1:07:27 Speaker 3 Someone asked him why you're wearing a tie. He said, "I think we just came back from the graduation."

1:07:32 Speaker 1 No.

1:07:33 Speaker 3 No, no, no?

1:07:34 Speaker 1 No, no. Tell it right. Hei Tammuz, tov shin chai, tov shin yud Ches, was the day of a chag hasium. We were graduating the eighth grade in Bedford Avenue. We were a bunch of kids before bar mitzvah, and we're graduating from the eighth grade. That day, Gershom Mendel Garele got married.

1:07:53 Speaker 3 So you're in this picture that I'm talking about?

1:07:55 Speaker 1 I'm not in the picture. I was there.

1:07:57 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:07:57 Speaker 1 We decided, "What's gonna happen at the graduation that's interesting? Nothing. Somebody's gonna say a speech. Let's ditch the graduation. Let's go to the chuppah." So we ditched our graduation, and we went to Gershom Mendel's chuppah.

1:08:13 Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

1:08:13 Speaker 1 That picture happens to have Shloime Zachi and Yakir David Katlaske, olav Shalom, uh, maybe with one other person, but we were all there. Lubavitcher kids. There were five, six Lubavitcher kids. We all walked together. Mass protest. We're not going to go to, to Chag HaSimcha nonsense. Can you imagine the principal? Imagine the, the bushah that Rabbi Tennenbaum had. They call a graduation, and half the class is not there. Which kids? Lubavitcher kids.

1:08:40 Speaker 3 Right.

1:08:40 Speaker 1 They walked out. They didn't come to their graduation.

1:08:45 Speaker 3 So then... And they're-- So they're in their garb. Okay, beautiful. You remember, like, the farbrengens and the halls, like, these type of things, like-

1:08:53 Speaker 1 Of course

1:08:53 Speaker 3 ... is, is, is there anything specific you wanna share from that time? You can... N-now, now is the time.

1:08:57 Speaker 1 Now is the time, huh. I remember Purim Tov Sheechai. So what would a 12-year-old kid do by a farbrengen until five o'clock in the morning? Five o'clock in the morning. Did we understand the sichas? We picked up a few words here and there, you know, but shayaach. But the Rebbe is here. He finished havek. So we stayed there all night. How could you keep your eyes open, a kid-little kid? So the hall, the big hall, Albany Manor, had s- whatever size it was, but it had a coat room.

1:09:40 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:09:41 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe used to come in and ha- give his coat room to the, to the g- to whoever is handling the coats. But you had to pay a dime. So most people didn't wanna pay the dime. That was big money in those days-

1:09:54 Speaker 3 Mm

1:09:55 Speaker 1 ... for Lubavitcher people who didn't have a job. So the, the, all the coats were dumped in a corner. So one of the corners next to the coat room, there were a pile of coats, you know, high up. S-so we slept on the coats, went to sleep on the coats. There was singing. We got up. "Oh, what's happening?" So the Rebbe jumped, uh, making with his hands. We all jumped. Sang, sang. The Rebbe started talking. So I remember distinctly when the Rebbe walked out. Now, everybody, for state, ru- ju- ran out following the Rebbe, but I was smarter. I went around the other side of the car, not where the Rebbe was coming in from. The car was parked facing north on Albany Avenue.

1:10:42 Speaker 3 Facing north. Okay.

1:10:44 Speaker 1 Facing north on Albany Avenue, which means the door that the Rebbe would have to go into was directly next to the, the sidewalk. I went around the other side. Others weren't going there. But when the Rebbe wa- came out, he opened the door, came and sat down, sh- moved across the street, opened the second door where I was standing, and, uh, yeah, whatever. So I saw the Rebbe in what- in whatever condition it was at the end of the farbrengen.

1:11:12 Speaker 3 Right. Famous farbrengen.

1:11:17 Speaker 1 I remember what the Rebbe to- said to various people at the farbrengen, 'cause that was interesting, you know?

1:11:23 Speaker 3 So, like, so you were, you were aware enough to, to, to know what, what's going on.

1:11:29 Speaker 1 Where else would you be?

1:11:31 Speaker 3 Right. I'm saying, but even-

1:11:33 Speaker 1 Understand, as kids, the reid bazachar chassidim, just to be there and to, to learn from the environment itself, to grow within that environment, that was what we were all about. So every farbrengen that took place in the, in the sukkah, we were there. Older chassidim came from, from, uh, Israel, from wherever else they were. We were there. They heard the alter chassidim. You know, this was standard fare.

1:12:05 Speaker 3 Right. What do you remember f- what's anything special from Bedford-Ind, from that, that experience worth sharing?

1:12:14 Speaker 1 No, I don't think. We were 14 years old when we went into the Beth Midrash in Bedford-Ind, which means at that time we were learning independently already. Made a leining, heard a shiur. It was standard fare. Um, today's generations are not quite where we were at that time. I could tell you a couple of interesting episodes, one in particular that I remember because I've told it many times. It was Yud Aleph Nisan, Tov Shin Chof Beis, the Rebbe's 60th birthday, and we were sitting in the zal, the zal Beth Midrash, and Rabbi Bukiet was the mashgiach then. And we were sitting and, uh, how much learning could we be doing? We're supposed to learning Shechinach. It's the afternoon, four o'clock in the afternoon, and we're learning. We wanna know what's going on in the 770. The hype that, uh, the Rebbe 60th birthday, what's gonna happen? The Rebbe went to the oil. We found out what's going on. Kids, and we decided, "What are we sitting here for? It's ridiculous. We're not really learning. I'm going over to Rabbi-- to, to Rabbi Bukiet. I'm gonna ask him, 'Rabbi Bukiet, we wanna leave. We wanna go to 770.'" Came over Rabbi Bukiet, and, um, I said, "Rabbi Bukiet," uh, there were about 10 of us in the Beth Midrash then. We, we decided we, we can't concentrate, Alter Rebbe's Shechinach now. We're-- We have to go to 770. We know it's Yud Aleph Nisan. We, we have to go to 770." Then the four klutzes with

1:14:01 Speaker 1 the Rebbe's, "Go, you, that's learnin'." "Go learn." You lazy go, you don't wanna learn. You go 770, hang around 770. Go learn. The guys were looking and watching to see how Rabbi Bukiet responds to my question. They said, "Okay, we're stuck. What can we do?" Anyway, we went back and simulated learning a little bit, and half hour later, we're plotting. It's five o'clock. We're plotting. We can't sit here like this. We gotta go. Go Rabbi Bukiet again, "Rabbi Bukiet, we have to go. We have to go. We can't." "You want a shas? You want permission? I can be permission to learn." Says Rabbi Bukiet, "We decided that we're gonna leave without permission. We have, we have to go. We can't stay here. It's a day like today, we can't stay." "Oh, Zechu Boruch Hashem. Thank God. I'm coming with you. Don't rush. I was waiting to hear what you're gonna say. You should finally say we're determined when we're gonna go."

1:15:10 Speaker 3 Uh.

1:15:11 Speaker 1 And we walked together to 770.

1:15:14 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:15:15 Speaker 1 That was our yeshiva, yes.

1:15:16 Speaker 3 What's the middah?

1:15:18 Speaker 1 The middah is that, uh, sometimes y- you... It's okay to take something into your own hands, so to speak. As a Chassidishe zach, you're moved in a way that, uh, you do something different because Yuchsid is pushing you.

1:15:36 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:15:37 Speaker 1 I have an interesting story to tell you. I shared this n- with a number of people. This is from Tov Shen Bays, and it's not from Russia. My father-in-law, Avrom Hecht, Rav Avrom Hecht, was a bocher at the time. He was less than 21 years old, and he was learning in 770, and suddenly Chaim Lieberman comes downstairs. Now, the bocher-- In bochur 770, they had 25 bochurim, whatever it was. Older bochurim, a few younger, but it was a, it was a yeshiva. It looked like a yeshiva already. He's sitting and learning, and Rabbi Chaim Lieberman comes over to him, that's the Rebbe secretary, and says to him, "Go upstairs, the Rebbe wants to see you." In the middle of the day, Chaim Lieberman should go to a bocher and say, "The Rebbe wants to see you." Just out of the blue. A thunderbolt. So he says, "Go upstairs. The Rebbe says the Rebbe wants to see you." Says, "I can't go upstairs. I haven't been to the mikvah." So every bocher emptied his pockets, and they put together enough change to be able to get a taxi, so he should go to the mikvah, which is in Brownsville, and come back. And he came back, fatsuppet, barely breathing. He's excited, but he's trembling. The Rebbe called him. It never happened. Anyway, he goes up-- f- follows Chaim Lieberman upstairs. Chaim Lieberman says to him, "Knock at the door." He can't get himself to knock at the door. So Chaim Lieberman knocks at the door. He

1:17:25 Speaker 1 hears the Rebbe on the, on the other side, "Yo." Says, "He can't move the handle. He can't..." Chaim Lieberman opens the door and pushes him inside. He's standing in front of the Rebbe, and the Rebbe says to him as follows: "Avrohom, do you know the difference between an American Chassid and a Russian Chassid? Avrohom, do you know the difference between an American Chassid and a Russian Chassid? An American Chassid is a spindle. It's like kindling. Kindling is a little piece of wood that you use to start a fire." And he says, "It gets a great flame, and then it dies quickly. A Russian Chassid is like a chunk of coal. The coal, after it has burned, appears not to be burning. But a little A little wind comes, and suddenly a flame bursts out. That was the end. He left shaking, and he g- walk-- starts walking down the stairs. Reb Shmuel is standing at the bottom of the stairs and the whole yeshiva. It was such a it never happened before. So he goes downstairs, and, "What did the Rebbe tell you? What did the Rebbe tell you?" So he said, "This is what happened." "Oh. So the Seder niggle is stopped. They started Shmuel, the idea of a momentary that you have. American is worthless. It goes out quickly. Et cetera, et cetera. So there you are, an example where sometimes you have to do something which out of the ordinary.

1:19:30 Speaker 3 Right. So here the did something out of the ordinary.

1:19:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. I'm saying just the idea.

1:19:34 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:19:35 Speaker 1 You have to do it. In the middle of Seder night.

1:19:38 Speaker 3 Ah, he's saying that.

1:19:39 Speaker 1 Was, was livid.

1:19:41 Speaker 3 He was the Rosh Yeshiva then.

1:19:42 Speaker 1 Rosh Yeshiva. There are times when you do out of the ordinary.

1:19:45 Speaker 3 Right. Okay. Um, it sounds interesting, the Frierdiker Rebbe. I heard a few things like this, how he would try to mold the, the American bochurim like this. So I don't even remember who I heard this story from, so it might wanna be one of these schmooze that you don't like. So maybe, maybe you know the story. But I heard that the Frierdiker Rebbe told a bocher to sleep in Reb Shmuel's room for a while, and he said, "Well, as we can schlof in under payat kahazen." They could sleep without the-

1:20:19 Speaker 1 Pajamas

1:20:19 Speaker 3 ... without the... Well, payat kahazen means clown clothes. Yeah. The, the pajamas. He wanted to see it's possible to sleep without pajamas. I, I don't remember even where I heard this from, so yeah.

1:20:29 Speaker 1 It, it is very possible. I, I would-

1:20:30 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:20:31 Speaker 1 ... that wouldn't be like that.

1:20:32 Speaker 3 Right. Okay. So Bedford and Dean, we, we, we, we covered some of it. Covered some of it. So, um, I guess we could talk about your bar mitzvah. That's yet a chiddesh I'm assuming and, uh, like what, what happened over there?

1:20:52 Speaker 1 Look, we went and see a chiddesh for my bar mitzvah. It was also something a little unusual. And the, the Rebbe asked me the first thing was, Saying a pilpul? Of course saying a pilpul. What's it a pilpul? The Rebbe wanted me to repeat the pilpul. It's a bekitza. My father said, "Zog bekitza." So I said, my father made the pilpul for me. Bekashe afna alt Rebbe Shneur, and the, the sheines of the Alter Rebbe, and a diyk, or whatever. Faremfemt. And the Rebbe... I finished, the Rebbe said, "Yast mir kashe." So I was stumped. I didn't know. Stamerst far fregn maynem, what said he gave him the pilpul at the mazbil zayn. And from then on, every year I went in for yechidas, till I was 17, 14, 15, 16, he would find me. Every year.

1:21:50 Speaker 3 That, that-- Isn't that unusual for a bocher?

1:21:52 Speaker 1 No.

1:21:52 Speaker 3 For a bocher.

1:21:52 Speaker 1 So when we were in Bedford Avenue, 'cause we were on Bedford Avenue.

1:21:56 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:21:56 Speaker 1 As long as we were in Bedford Avenue, till 16, every time I went in, the Rebbe would ask you something about learning. Always.

1:22:05 Speaker 3 That was usual by, by, um, by-

1:22:06 Speaker 1 Most, mo- my class-

1:22:08 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm

1:22:08 Speaker 1 ... kimat always.

1:22:09 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:22:10 Speaker 1 Kimat always. For bar mitzvah I went in, the Rebbe said, "Stamest far af an ohel." We had no plans to go to the ohel. So my f- he looked to my father and said, "Misztamet far af an ohel." So nich me nisht he should take me. Gefin a bocher in seven seventy as to nem an af an ohel. Find a bocher in seven seventy to take me.

1:22:36 Speaker 3 Your father shouldn't take you.

1:22:37 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I remember Berel Futtimass, zol zayn gezunt. Um, he just had his 90th birthday this week. Zol zayn gezunt, took me to the ohel then by subway, and by, uh, walking half the way, whatever it was then.

1:22:55 Speaker 3 The day of the bar mitzvah.

1:22:56 Speaker 1 The day of the bar mitzvah.

1:22:57 Speaker 3 There and back.

1:22:58 Speaker 1 There and back.

1:22:58 Speaker 3 So there-

1:22:59 Speaker 1 The Friday.

1:22:59 Speaker 3 Oh.

1:23:00 Speaker 1 The Friday.

1:23:01 Speaker 3 So there and there, bar mitzvah day. I once took the subway to the ohel. It takes a long time.

1:23:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. That was the day. That's all I did. Didn't do anything else. Um-

1:23:11 Speaker 3 That's very unusual. What's shat?

1:23:12 Speaker 1 Of course it's one of shat. I haven't figured it out till today. Whatever it was.

1:23:16 Speaker 3 The, to go to the ohel I've seen.

1:23:17 Speaker 1 Dos iz der Rebbe gevolt, whatever it was, that was what it was.

1:23:20 Speaker 3 I saw letters in Yiddish where the Rebbe's telling... There's one letter I'm thinking in particular, where the Rebbe is saying that the day of the bar mitzvah to go to the ohel. Yeah, but this thing that not-- the father shouldn't take-

1:23:28 Speaker 1 Yechidas. My father shouldn't take me. Whatever.

1:23:31 Speaker 3 Oh.

1:23:33 Speaker 1 And then Shabbos I met the Rebbetsin going to shul, and they made the party. It was on Sunday. The party is Shmari, what's the difference?

1:23:42 Speaker 3 Right. So what... Can you tell me more about the other yechidasim when you were a bocher?

1:23:47 Speaker 1 No.

1:23:48 Speaker 3 Anything from there that you can?

1:23:51 Speaker 1 Not public.

1:23:52 Speaker 3 Nothing of the-

1:23:52 Speaker 1 Yechidas

1:23:53 Speaker 3 ... nothing is public? Let me ask you a question right now. Stan, I was discussing with a friend, when I do these interviews, many people don't want to share their yechidas. Why?

1:24:07 Speaker 1 Well, it's called yechidas, no?

1:24:10 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:24:12 Speaker 1 When I went in as a menahil of a school, so I had herois from the Rebbe, which I've shared many times already. But what I had as a bocher, personal things, why would I share it?

1:24:25 Speaker 3 'Cause they're personal, you're saying.

1:24:27 Speaker 1 Yechidas is personal.

1:24:29 Speaker 3 And, and, and they usually weren't herois that are for the clown.

1:24:32 Speaker 1 Herois harabbim, I can't say anything was a herois rabbim.

1:24:36 Speaker 3 Okay. So you're learning in Bedford and Dean in yeshiva. W- what's it called, yeshiva? It's called high school? What, what is it called? Uh-

1:24:44 Speaker 1 Yeshiva. It was usually yeshiva, Bedford.

1:24:45 Speaker 3 So who, who was your... So who-- So that's when you started becoming a, you know, a person who-

1:24:50 Speaker 1 Understand, we learned ba- from when we were 14 years old, five days a week, we learned Berabiel for an hour and a half a day.

1:24:57 Speaker 3 That's what I wanna hear about. Tell me about Berabiel.

1:24:59 Speaker 1 Every day, Sunday through Thursday, an hour and a half. And we started learning, uh, Rab... Ferem, uh, Bitlon Marom from, from the, from Kotdeteria, but then right away onto Derf mit Sacher. And we spent years, after all, learning Berabiel. Three years in Bedford, and then later on, I mean... So we were all formed by Rabiel, really. All the fabringens that happened were Rabiel. Every Yemah D'Pargan, Rabiel fabracht with us. The standard. So, uh, th- tho- those formative years, Rabiel brought us to the Rebbe through Chassidus. We were enamored of the idea of what Chassidus does. We can't understand what's tutzing the velt, Yiddishkeit without Chassidus. That brought us to the Rebbe. You know, not-- It wasn't superficial, um, uh, I, I like the Rebbe's hero, I like the Rebbe goes like, like this, says Mele. It was very, very measured, and it's... Yechidasin that we had were serious yechidas, and it wasn't gehackt in China.

1:26:14 Speaker 3 You're saying he would prepare you for the yechidas.

1:26:16 Speaker 1 Always. What gift to frag? The host, what to frag in it? That's the first thing. You have anything to ask? You know, you understand it's an opportunity.

1:26:32 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:26:32 Speaker 1 We understood yechidas is the opportunity for the whole year, and something which is bothering you, you have to talk, you have to...

1:26:41 Speaker 3 You're saying, so those-

1:26:43 Speaker 1 Say bocher shiur, it's different. Everything is different.

1:26:46 Speaker 3 But those that had that direction from Rabiel were able to, to do the yechidas-

1:26:51 Speaker 1 I, I, I'm not, I'm not discussing my yechidas as bocher. Yungman at the Pasandos.

1:27:01 Speaker 3 Okay, fine. So what, so what else about Rabiel? Like, what was the...

1:27:05 Speaker 1 Look, Rabiel taught us how to learn Chassidus, not he taught us a maima. He taught us how to learn a maima Where to try to be analytical and where not to, to spend time on the words, where not to, you know.

1:27:23 Speaker 3 It's a very interesting thing, your, your Isha Chinuch, which we'll get to. But at least when I was in Mesivta, a lot of times the staff were like very young and very inexperienced, and you get the Zal, it will give you a, a Mashpia. That seems like the way it was as a Punfaket. Reb Yael was the Mashgia kid.

1:27:44 Speaker 1 Imagine Lubavitch was built on my class. Reb Yael made Hasidim out of six, ten guys of our class. None of them are business people, you can understand. Everybody had a Shlichas. And then the next class, it followed. When he taught us for a couple of years, the next class was my brother's class. My brother's a few years younger than me, and his class was also one of the classes that Reb Yael taught, but he only taught it for one year. They were-- He was never Kerne Shvisa with them. He fashioned the whole thing. He fashioned Hasidus the way it developed in America today. The Hasidus comfortably Reb Yael taught our classes. He put down the foundations. The Bochum who are five years older than us learned already, uh, Nesan Akant, and they learned in France. Different story. American boys grew up completely in America. Reb Yael formed, Reb Yael fashioned the, the Hasidus as we know it.

1:28:50 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, so what happened afterwards? You, uh, you finished the Mesivta, then people started going to different places, right? What happens?

1:29:03 Speaker 1 We were young kids just still, sixteen, seventeen years old. So, uh, some went here, some went there, some went to Seven Seventy directly. I came into the Seven Seventy Tavshin Chov Gimel. So in Tavshin Chov Gimel we were-

1:29:21 Speaker 3 One second, you went straight to Seven Seventy?

1:29:23 Speaker 1 The day we finished Bedford Avenue, the next morning we went to Seven Seventy. What are you talking about?

1:29:28 Speaker 3 You didn't learn anywhere else?

1:29:29 Speaker 1 You don't understand what, what... This is Lubavitch.

1:29:31 Speaker 3 I thought people went to-

1:29:32 Speaker 1 Nobody went. You went from Seven Seventy.

1:29:35 Speaker 3 Oh, okay, fine. Okay.

1:29:37 Speaker 1 Today you finish Bedford Avenue, whatever it was, the yeshiva is over. So next morning you show up in Seven Seventy. Wait, wait. What's this farm Isis was?

1:29:45 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:29:47 Speaker 1 Now you're Seven Seventy Bochur. I had the first day we learned in, in Seven Seventy. Um, we're still learning whatever in Sbigievach, Mesivta. We have to learn it. And then we do what it was Seven Seventy Bochur. So we go to six seven six, which was the kitchen, to go and eat lunch.

1:30:09 Speaker 3 Eastern Parkway.

1:30:09 Speaker 1 Yeah. We sit down to eat lunch, and frankly, I was feeling good about myself. I could learn, understand it, I learned Tesvis. You know, I learned. Didn't waste of time. Learned. And Meir Achzibil sits down next to me. He says, "Kapland, what's to learn? What did you learn?"

1:30:31 Speaker 3 He's a Bochur then?

1:30:32 Speaker 1 Yeah, sure.

1:30:33 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:30:35 Speaker 1 Remember, Seven Seventy was a small place. We knew all the Bochur, the Bochur knew us.

1:30:39 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:30:40 Speaker 1 What did you learn? I told him I learned a Tesvis. He asked me a Kasha. It's a good Kasha. He asked me another Kasha. It's a good Kasha. So he says, "So why are you so... Why are you so pleased with yourself? You didn't can answer any of these Kashas." So he popped my bubble the first day.

1:31:04 Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

1:31:05 Speaker 1 Well, I went back. I struggled. If I look at the first time, ask the Kasha, it's not the, not important. But that was my relationship with the older Bochur. The older Bochur felt then that, uh, Madrich, a younger Bochur, these still kids coming into Zal after the Machap Shikha Menchuvanze.

1:31:21 Speaker 3 Right.

1:31:22 Speaker 1 Just like it is today.

1:31:25 Speaker 3 And then the... No, no better way of doing that than inflating the bubble a little bit. But back in the day, um-

1:31:31 Speaker 1 That was the Bochaber.

1:31:32 Speaker 3 Uh-huh.

1:31:34 Speaker 1 Look, we did him all our lives. It was Levai Togishrit.

1:31:38 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. So you stayed in Seven Seventy?

1:31:41 Speaker 1 I... The Rebbe told me to go there. So first I went to, to, um, Newark. My father insisted on my going to Newark.

1:31:48 Speaker 3 So after a short while being at Seven Seventy.

1:31:50 Speaker 1 After Cheshvan. From Kislev, from, from Sivan to Cheshvan, he learned Seven Seventy.

1:31:56 Speaker 3 Then Cheshvan to Newark.

1:31:56 Speaker 1 Then Cheshvan went to, to Bet- to, to Newark.

1:31:59 Speaker 3 Who was in Newark? The Meir Achuston, the Bochur?

1:32:01 Speaker 1 No. Meir Achuston was a Bochur.

1:32:03 Speaker 3 So it was in Newark?

1:32:03 Speaker 1 Sol Fridman was in Newark.

1:32:04 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:32:06 Speaker 1 My father helped me with Sol Fridman's learning. He wanted me to learn by Sol Fridman. And then the Rebbe told me to go to Israel.

1:32:14 Speaker 3 You asked about what the-

1:32:15 Speaker 1 Nope.

1:32:15 Speaker 3 The nichidis the Rebbe told you. To go to Kvachamal.

1:32:21 Speaker 1 Yep.

1:32:23 Speaker 3 And what did the Rebbe tell you anything specific about it? 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 Bereshis, Tavshin Yudaled, the Rebbe founded Keren Hashanah under Machane Israel to ensure that every single Yid has the chus of giving tzedakah every single day. The Rebbe explained that Tishrei is a cheidish 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 berachahs 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 Machne Israel, the money is physically dispersed on your behalf twice a day before Shacharit and before Mincha

1:33:49 Speaker 3 and before Shabbos and Yom Tov, and when it's 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 brachos for the entire year to come.

1:34:25 Speaker 1 The only thing I can share is the Rebbe told me, I went into Yechidus before I left. So the Rebbe said, "Zol shickn gute girisim vegen zikh un vegen di tmimim, Zol segn mir a giris un shickn gute girisim vegen zey." So send reports about yourself, good reports about yourself, and good reports about the bochurim in the yeshiva. Send them regards and send good... So regards? What am I gonna do for regards? So, uh, the first Shabbos I came there, whatever it was, like the night, we had a farbrengen, and chuk chaza the sichos of Shabbos. I reviewed the sichos of Shabbos. But, uh, Reb Shlomo Chaim wasn't particularly enamored of that idea. He says, "Zol gigin a giris." Chuk chaza, Machana, tzias vezich, Machana. Chuk chaza, the sichos. I did it anyway. But the Rebbe told me to send regards. What do I do? So I went to Reb Shlomo Chaim, and I said, "What does this mean, send regards?" He said, "Giris, giris." Wasn't good enough. I had to send... So I sent a number of letters giving a general overview of the yeshiva from my perspective. I was an 18-year-old kid, giving an overview of the yeshiva, and, uh, I got responses.

1:35:48 Speaker 3 You, you did this a number of times?

1:35:50 Speaker 1 Did a few times.

1:35:51 Speaker 3 And each one there was responses?

1:35:54 Speaker 1 The Rebbe acknowledged receiving the letter.

1:35:56 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. Wow. For overview from a 18-year-old on the yeshiva, beautiful. Um, what about Reb Shlomo Chaim?

1:36:11 Speaker 1 Reb Shlomo Chaim. Reb Shlomo Chaim never got the credit he was due because, uh, people never knew the degree to which he was communicating with the Rebbe on a regular basis. I didn't know it either. Later, when the letters were printed, some of, some of the letters were printed, it became clear that he had heroes from the Rebbe all the time. Only once did I see that there's a different kind of communication. Reb Shlomo Chaim called me over, and he shows me a letter. He says, "Ich muss dir weisen im brief." I have to show it to you because otherwise you won't know what to do. He shows me a letter of the Rebbe about a particular bochur, and the particular bochur was a shtikel noifel at the time. And the Rebbe wrote, "Mi leigt afem keches mil mailo u mil mato." Maybe you should try to have an infect, an effect, uh, an effect on him through his chaverim. So he called me over. He says, "Ich weiss bizayner a chaver."

1:37:18 Speaker 3 He was an American.

1:37:20 Speaker 1 Whatever he was. You're a chaver of his. Maybe you can see if you get a vashpo on him. It was a very difficult job. Whatever. He turned out l'elo elo m'kol machos v'shiros. He became a shliach on, uh, Ma'abitz Teire, on the, uh, Chassidish Eretz. Alav hashalom. He was no longer with us. But you can imagine Reb Shlomo Chaim had to share that with me. So I remember telling the guys, I wasn't allowed to tell anybody what, what the issue was. He told me, "Mazal Tov. Don't share this with anybody." But I said, "Reb Shlomo..." They saw I go to Reb Shlomo Chaim. So he s-- I said, "Reb Shlomo Chaim showed me a letter. The Rebbe writes about individuals, about individual bochurim, a whole letter." And it was f- it was flabbergasting because we saw it's a different kind of communication completely than what we anticipated.

1:38:17 Speaker 3 That's not how you perceive Chaim.

1:38:18 Speaker 1 We didn't perceive Reb Shlomo Chaim that way. I had a very good relationship with him. Let's just say that. Reb Shlomo Chaim came in for Yut Shvat Tov Shen Lamed. So he was here for three days. Tzachako. He came on Thursday, and he left on Sunday night. He left on Monday. Sunday n- So there was a farbrengen Friday, farbrengen, uh... And Monday, Sunday night there was... The big farbrengen was on Sunday night, and Monday he was still here. Farbrengen by me in the shtetl. He had a farbrengen in my house. I was married already then.

1:38:57 Speaker 3 What year is, were you in Chabad?

1:38:59 Speaker 1 Tov Shen Lamed. Chof Hey and Chof Vav.

1:39:01 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:39:03 Speaker 1 So farbrengen by me in the shtetl. I invited a group of guys, and Reb Shlomo Chaim farbreched, spent the night. So obviously, we had a relationship.

1:39:14 Speaker 3 Right.

1:39:17 Speaker 1 By farbrengens, he would, uh, pick on me a lot. You know, that's a kuv.

1:39:23 Speaker 3 Right. Okay.

1:39:27 Speaker 1 I'll share this, Reb Shlomo Chaim's havot. This is Rosh Chodesh Nisan, Er Libes Nisan, which is the last day of yeshiva till the ben hazmanim. We had a farbrengen, a great farbrengen. Reb Shlomo Chaim a girer fig Meshiach. Meshiach had kumen, and welcome Meshiach, et cetera, et cetera. This is Tov Chof Hey. And he says to me, "Nochem, Meshiach had kumen, du vis lefn a bunker." Meshiach will come, you'll hide in a bunker, because everybody will come greet Meshiach, and you'll be embarrassed. Well, bis a foiler klotz, you're lazy. You don't wanna daven. Reb Shlomo would yell at little Davden Bariches. And that wasn't the way Rabbi Yael taught us. I resisted. Trachnosides. Safoi LaClots. I have no, no, uh, remedy for you at all. Everybody else I have a remedy for, for all their ills, except you, 'cause you're lazy. That was the biggest cure for, I mean, you know.

1:40:40 Speaker 4 Today, today with Mashbim, don't, probably don't have such a kid at the Rebbechem, so he wouldn't recommend this, uh, rec-

1:40:45 Speaker 1 Wouldn't recommend something like that

1:40:46 Speaker 4 ... this recipe.

1:40:47 Speaker 1 Yeah. But, but Shlomcha, it was a different story.

1:40:51 Speaker 4 Oh, okay.

1:40:53 Speaker 1 Um, there was, there's an organization in the yeshiva then called ATO, Igrot Talmidei Chachmei yeshivas. We did various paulus and, uh, said yeshurim in Chassidis, in Chassidis and various yeshiva, yeshivas.

1:41:08 Speaker 4 For the Tznang Rebbechem.

1:41:09 Speaker 1 Yeah, Tznang Rebbechem. So they wanted me to run for the position of Ro- uh, of Rosh ATO. "You should be an organizer, you'll do it." I said, "Okay." That you had to get an ishu from Shlomcha. Shlomcha calls me over says, "I'm not approving you." Okay. Whatever you tell me. So he says, "'Cause if your father finds out that I'd let you become an askan at 19, 20 years old, he'll chase me down. I know your father."

1:41:44 Speaker 4 He knew him, he knew him.

1:41:45 Speaker 1 He knew him from Tashkent.

1:41:46 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:41:46 Speaker 1 "I'm not gonna do it. Sorry. Your job is to sit and learn, period."

1:41:53 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:41:55 Speaker 1 Had a similar maaseh with Rabbi Jacobson after I got married. Rabbi Jac- I was liv- In those days, you didn't touch a yodea until you became a chossen. Became a chossen, then Hola would go in and ask the Rebbe if such and such a bocher just became a chossen, has permission to start learning yodea.

1:42:17 Speaker 4 But didn't the Rebbe say years before to learn yodea?

1:42:18 Speaker 1 I'm just telling you what it was. In those years, nobody touched a yodea. So my chaver then, Itche Gorevitch, became a chossen. So then Hola went into the Rebbe and asked if Itche Gorevitch could start learning yodea. This is only a half a day, in the second half a day. So the Rebbe asked me, "Where is ein chavrusa? Who is he learning with?" But mentally happened to know that he's learning with me. So he said. So he said, oh, well, the Rebbe said to him, "Well, ivot lo chossen. He's not a chossen yet. Ah, he can't learn yodea."

1:42:54 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:42:56 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe said, "Zon ze on him lerne kol habosem. Learnin midim Tur and Bet Yosef." And then biz vos ven. So this was a unique heroy. Learn kol habosem with Tur Bet Yosef. So not yodea, chalila, but we were learning yodea, so to speak, you know, learning the Gemaras.

1:43:21 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:43:23 Speaker 1 Does he remember yodea?

1:43:24 Speaker 4 One second.

1:43:25 Speaker 1 So I'm telling you in the middle of telling you a story.

1:43:26 Speaker 4 You say Maiseh of Jacobson.

1:43:27 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I was learning yodea in the kolel. Rabbi Jacobson comes with a proposition to me. Proposition is as follows: You learn yodea all day. One hill chassid in the morning, one chassid in the afternoon. You learn yodea. So how about going every day at six o'clock instead of 7:00 when you finish, and learn what you are learning in the morning, teach that to the bochurim in Hadar Hatorah. It's a win-win. I get the chazer, yeah, and they get to learn with somebody who's learning it currently, and I'm getting a few dollars. We were paid very handsomely with the kolel then. We got $72 a month.

1:44:12 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm. This is taf shin lamed.

1:44:16 Speaker 1 Taf shin chaf ches.

1:44:17 Speaker 4 Chaf tes. Chaf tes. So Hadar Hatorah just started then.

1:44:19 Speaker 1 Yep.

1:44:20 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:44:21 Speaker 1 So I, I wrote to the Rebbe. I wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe says to me, writes me back, "Einai elo atsas hayeitzer. In yoni lilmid b'shkidah v'hasmadah v'suloi. It's only a tachbula of the yetzer hora. You have to sit and learn b'shkidah v'hasmadah and nothing else." Rabbi Jacobson was incredulous. We're not talking about a job. We're talking about learning. The Rebbe did not want any askanus at all. You're gonna start talking to the boys. Uh, whatever, you'll get involved. No. Sit and learn.

1:45:00 Speaker 4 Hmm. So that was your job at the time?

1:45:05 Speaker 1 As, as I told you earlier, suloi, that was it.

1:45:09 Speaker 4 Right. Okay. So what was like-

1:45:13 Speaker 1 I have an interesting episode to tell you, another one.

1:45:15 Speaker 4 About kolel?

1:45:16 Speaker 1 No, going back a few years.

1:45:17 Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. Go-

1:45:18 Speaker 1 '77.

1:45:18 Speaker 4 I want to go back. One second. Just one second. So could I interject over here?

1:45:22 Speaker 1 Please, go ahead.

1:45:23 Speaker 4 So you're in Kva- in Kva- in Kvair Chabad, then you come to learn in 1770. I wanna talk about that tzkuveh, but say the story.

1:45:30 Speaker 1 About the tzkuveh of 1770. In Shvuot taf shin chaf, uh, zayin, the Rebbe spoke very s- very harshly about the Newark Yeshiva that had closed for the summer. The Yeshiva Torah Zachlis Tsumachin, you're not allowed to close a yeshiva. The bochurim have a rashus to go away, but to close the yeshiva, not allowed to do that So what do you do? The Bochum from Newark had all gone already. So I was sitting and learning upstairs with my Chavrusah, and I had already arranged that I was going on Merkesh Lichas. We used to go on Merkesh Lichas either of three weeks, either from Yud Mis Tammuz until, uh, Chof Ov. I'm sorry, till, till Reshrei Dish Ov, or from Reshrei Dish Ov till Chof Ov. A little bit less than three weeks both ways. Those were two Tkufas of Merkesh Lichas, and that was that. And here, uh, all of a sudden, Rabbi Menta comes over to me and says, calls me outside and says, "Dan Holod was machlit that I should get a group of 10 Bochum together, and I should go to Newark," because I heard what the Rebbe said yesterday about Newark. So I should get a group of 10 Bochum together and go to Newark. The Rabbi Menta like, "I'm going on Merkesh Lichas. I have reshus to go on Merkesh Lichas. I have a Chava to go on Merkesh Lichas." A Chava was a big deal because he had somebody to drive. I didn't drive a car. Nobody drove a car

1:47:08 Speaker 1 in 1770. Dova Nodov.

1:47:10 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:47:11 Speaker 1 He started to... He got a license, but car. So he had a guy with a Bochum, was an older Bochum a little bit. So I was 21, he was 23, whatever. At any rate, I'm going on Merkesh Lichas, so, you know, find somebody else. I said, "Go back down." They asked me to go. I said, "No, with a good reason, and I'm not going." Sit down, start learning again, and Rabbi Menta comes over to me and says, "Rab Shmuel Vildilzen, Rab Shmuel Levitan wants to see you." Now, that's trouble already.

1:47:48 Speaker 4 One of my questions was I want you to talk to me about Rab Shmuel, so I guess we'll start.

1:47:52 Speaker 1 Rab Shmuel wants to see you. Okay. I came into Rab Shmuel's room. Shmuel says, "Sit down. It's trouble twice." Not only wants to see you, but he's going to give you a, a talk now. And he tells me a story. It starts very mild, that, uh, it was... I'm trying to remember the year exactly. Ayin Gimmel, Ayin Dalet, before the First World War, the Rebbe Rashab said to him he should go to, to, uh, Gruzia and become a Rov in Gruzia. A Rov in Gruzia? So this was wartime, and go to wartime, go to Gruzia, a- and what's in Gruzia? He has kids. A thousand things are going through his mind. Oh, but the Rebbe Gehashen. So he went right away to Gruzia. Then he moved his family. He went to... But the Rebbe Gehashen. In Tofresh Pay, uh, Zion, he gets a telegram from the Rebbe, and the Rebbe says he should come to be the Menail in the Yeshivi Nevil. The Menail meant to be the Ruach Achaim of the Yeshivi Nevil. Shmuel says, "Nevil? Azev Yavdelevone." He never expected anything like that. Oh, and this made Gishvungin from the frying pan into the fire. Nevil. The Enkevedeh. But the Rebbe Gejokt. So he picked up, and he moved to Nevil. Un Baruch Hashem Gishashen Terayom. Right away, they sent-- he was sent off very, very quickly, uh, to whatever it was, to Siberia, and he spent three years in Siberia. You come from Siberia, and you get a telegram from the Rebbe.

1:50:06 Speaker 1 The Rebbe's already in, in Riga. He should, uh, ask that he should a- a- apply to be able to leave Russia. Leave Russia? It's an impossible thing. If you were Fashikt, you were in jail, so to speak. So you didn't have a worker's card. You were not recognized by anybody. You were persecuted by any government office. For you to go and have the chutzpah to ask for a visa to leave, a visa, a permission to leave Russia, I mean, that's the biggest avera you could possibly do. But the Rebbe Gejokt. I didn't ask any questions. So I applied, and he got an immediate reply. Yes, you can leave. It was unheard of. So he left, went to Riga. Rebbe, what's yet? The Rebbe said, "Go to Kutais." I'm sorry, to, to, uh, Rakishiki. They need a Rov, and he became a Rov in Rakishiki. And he had a Rabbonas in Rakishiki. A Rov in Rakishiki after four years was by Yechidas by the Rebbe in, in V- I believe it was in Varshe already.

1:51:28 Speaker 4 Where is it actually? It's in, uh, Poland?

1:51:29 Speaker 1 Litvin. Litvin.

1:51:30 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:51:30 Speaker 1 So it was Poland at the time. Rakishiki. So, uh, comes to Yechidas, and the Rebbe says to him he wants him to go to America. To America? Azhev Yavdelevone. Who's going to America? America? But the Rebbe Gejokt. He left his wife and kids in, in Rakishiki, and he came to America. Un nefa b'nechdo. That's why he survived. His wife and son did not survive. He looks at me and says, "What's better for you? What did we ask you? To go to Newark for a few weeks?

1:52:09 Speaker 4 You saw him do this?

1:52:49 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, I came back into the zal, and I told him what hap- told the guys what happened. "Don't ask me. Don't ask me." What am I gonna do here? I gotta... The Rebbe, he said the Rebbe already, and he's the Rebbe right now. What should I do? I went to my Tsadzik friends, Shmuel Keibel. "Come."

1:53:12 Speaker 4 Come, come, come.

1:53:14 Speaker 1 Shmuel Keibel. I got, put together a group. I, I don't think there was a minyan, eight or nine of us, and we came back for Shabbos, but I put together a group. Moshe Harrison was not enamored with the fact that he had to do this. He had no alternative. And that's the story with Reb Shmuel. So I had a relationship with Reb Shmuel. First of all, we were in the country together. He was, uh, with the Levittens, and we were in the country for a few years together.

1:53:47 Speaker 4 So you would go to the country?

1:53:48 Speaker 1 Yeah. So he went to the country. I was in Camp Ratner. He used to come to visit.

1:53:51 Speaker 4 So the Rebbe speaks to you, Biz Tamuz, that you're looking at the clock to go to the train, he means Reb Shmuel?

1:53:56 Speaker 1 No. No. Shmuel never wore a watch.

1:53:59 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:53:59 Speaker 1 Nah, he wore-

1:54:01 Speaker 4 But that concept.

1:54:02 Speaker 1 Concept, yeah. And, uh, so he knew me well. Uh, Shmuel knew my grandfather well, though, from Pahara, as I said earlier. So I wasn't a stranger. He knew my father from, from the underground yeshivas. You know, it was-- This is all familiar stuff. I imagine that he picked on me for that reason also. Shmuel was head of the Hanhalla. He picked on me for that reason, too. I'll get him to go.

1:54:31 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:54:34 Speaker 1 So Reb Shmuel was Reb Shmuel. Did we get a lot of shpoir from Reb Shmuel? Yeah, from what I said, he was... In my time, he was no longer really a Baal Hashpoir.

1:54:45 Speaker 4 I know some people like the Mekabel, like stories from him and things like that.

1:54:51 Speaker 1 Yeah. Hashpoir, we got from Reb Yael.

1:54:53 Speaker 4 In Seven Seventy also?

1:54:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, Reb Yael. I'll tell you a story. In Tof Shin Chav Rov. Um, my brother was learning then in Montreal. He came from Montreal, and Reb Yael goes over to him and says, uh, "Er zukt a platz farbrengen," um, Purim. Then Eltern and Ishto, there was no secrets. "Maybe you can farbreng in your parents' house."

1:55:26 Speaker 4 Okay, they were traveling there.

1:55:28 Speaker 1 They were in Netanel.

1:55:29 Speaker 4 Oh, okay.

1:55:29 Speaker 1 They came to Netanel. Okay. I was in Netanel then also, so where? For us, nisht. So the, uh, all he had to do was say bedavka farbrengen. He didn't take care of anything else. I mean, the guys put together whatever, farbeis and mashke. Um, it farbracht on sip Purim. Purim we farbracht then the first night, not the second night.

1:55:51 Speaker 4 The Rebbe's night.

1:55:52 Speaker 1 The second night, the Rebbe's farbrengen. Um, we all good farbracht. So the mashke flowed, and the house was wrecked completely. And as Shlomo Zache told me later on, they called a taxi, took down three shikurim, shoved them into the taxi, and said, "Seven seventy." Not a three shikurim, taxi, seven seventy. Bekitza, the next morning, my brothers got up, and the place is a wreck. And my parents are coming home in a few days. What are we gonna do here? Bekitza, they got a bunch of guys together, and they had to clean the house from top to bottom. They barely made it in time to catch a place with a farbrengen.

1:56:36 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:56:38 Speaker 1 So our hashpoir was Rabbi Yael. So I think in Seven Seventy, wherever else we were. So Rabbi Jacob definitely shofacht in, in, uh, in Seven Seventy, but that, uh, it's our class, it wasn't so much the gear.

1:56:48 Speaker 4 Right. What was it like, bachah, being in Seven Seventy? So all of a sudden you're around the Rebbe all the time, in every Mincha, and every, every farbrengen. Like, what was that like?

1:56:59 Speaker 1 Look, everything evolved around the Rebbe all our lives, so... But there was a strong personal ki-- I'll give you an example. This is, this is Tof Shin Chav Zayin. The Rebbe used to come in for Mincha and for Shacharis, so he would daven in his weekday place. You know where that was.

1:57:20 Speaker 4 The door.

1:57:20 Speaker 1 Yeah, by the door. So he came in for-

1:57:22 Speaker 4 By the clock.

1:57:23 Speaker 1 Yeah. So when he came in for Krias HaTorah, he would bend over and look in the Chumash.

1:57:31 Speaker 4 On the table.

1:57:32 Speaker 1 On the table. And he would bend over a lot. And we're not talking about a young man. So I said, "This is crazy. Why are we letting the Rebbe do this? We have to make a little shtender and put the Chumash on the shtender, and he will-- he'll stand and be able to see." And I also knew that the Rebbe wears glasses in his room, so the reading is hard for him.

1:57:57 Speaker 4 How do you know?

1:57:59 Speaker 1 What's the difference?

1:58:00 Speaker 4 Okay.

1:58:01 Speaker 1 We knew-

1:58:02 Speaker 4 Apparent- apparently I'm asking a good question.

1:58:03 Speaker 1 We knew that, that the Rebbe wore glasses when he was learning all the time. All the time.

1:58:08 Speaker 4 You saw?

1:58:08 Speaker 1 Yeah. So we knew- So in Meila, uh, what's this thing over here? I take off my glasses, could I see a Chumash over here? Okay, I'm older than the Rebbe was then, but whatever. So I decided we have to build a little thing. Who's gonna build it? I'll get Yankel Lipsky to build it. Yankel Lipsky, I said, "You can just buy in, or you can get it sold for the olds." Pay me for the money, for the wood. What's it gonna cost? It costs a hundred dollars. Okay.

1:58:40 Speaker 4 Big money.

1:58:41 Speaker 1 Hundred dollars. Where am I gonna get a hundred dollars from? I went to every Bochum in seven seventy. You gotta give me a dollar for, for... What are you crazy? Anyway, I put together seventy or eighty dollars, and a few added whatever, double up. I got him his hun- ninety dollars, I think. I didn't pay him a hundred, a whole hundred dollars. And he got to work making a table, a little shtender.

1:59:02 Speaker 4 It's back in-

1:59:03 Speaker 1 The first one

1:59:03 Speaker 4 ... it's, it's all, it's in his style, that shtender.

1:59:05 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:59:05 Speaker 4 The, the Aron Kodesh.

1:59:07 Speaker 1 It did change many times afterwards, but it was the style of the Aron Kodesh. If you saw pictures-

1:59:12 Speaker 4 Yeah

1:59:12 Speaker 1 ... in those days. Now, everybody said to me, "Look, " Cause with the Rebbe, you never know how that's gonna work out. So I said, "You know what? I'm gonna be in the hall. I, I'm, I'm not going to watch what, what happens when the Rebbe comes in." I'm afraid. We were shocked, you know, into feeling that the Rebbe would reject every little thing. The Rebbe didn't want no help of anybody. Anyway, we put it down. We put the Chumash on top, and the Rebbe came in.

1:59:47 Speaker 4 You don't ask maskitas or anything? Yeah.

1:59:49 Speaker 1 Maybe he would say no, but fair is nisht. Depends who you ask. Leibel would say, "Meshuggah, meshuggah, you give that to Zamisov Zach ton by Alein." And Yodel would say, "Ah," you know, whatever. We did it. Anyway, everybody was naygerik to see how the Rebbe's gonna respond, and the first thing he did when he walked in and took a look at it, went like this. I wasn't there. I walked, I was in the hall. He pushed it away and put the Chumash on the table. And then a few minutes later, he picked up his Chumash, and he moved it over, and he put the Chumash on top. First, he rejected it. You can imagine how the Bochum felt. Those who said, "You're crazy doing it by yourself," were vindicated, et cetera. And those of us who spent the money and the time and the effort, we felt like two cents. The Rebbe rejected it. When he pulled it back, everybody was happy.

2:00:48 Speaker 4 Yeah.

2:00:49 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem. And that remained that way l'olam ul'olmei olamoyot.

2:00:53 Speaker 4 Right.

2:00:53 Speaker 1 So that, that was our relationship, you know. A very personal relationship. Yehidas with Yehidas. An example. This is Tov Shin Chof Zayin, and it is Achash Del Pesach. So Rav Charnikov called me in, uh, right after Yud Aleph Nissan. And he said to me, "There are Bochum that come home from all yeshivas for Pesach. We should get together as many Bochum as we can and make a Kinus Teyre of Bochum on Chalam Ed Pesach." So for example, she- Teva Daas will surely have Bochum who are learning Kraat with Still Crown Heights. You have Bochum in Crown Heights from Teva Daas, from Chaim Berlin, maybe another yeshiva or two. Make a Kinus Teyre. Okay. Who he, he called in me and Yisroel Shmatkin. So the two of us were put in charge of this, and we had to put together a Kinus Teyre with... The main thing was a fremde Bochum.

2:02:05 Speaker 4 Which is so interesting.

2:02:06 Speaker 1 Where are we gonna do it? On seven seventy, obviously.

2:02:09 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:02:10 Speaker 1 So we did-

2:02:10 Speaker 4 This is the first Kinus Teyre?

2:02:11 Speaker 1 First one. So Frankel's shul, we did it.

2:02:15 Speaker 4 Okay.

2:02:16 Speaker 1 And we got a big favor. A guy who was there, and he said us a little bit from, uh, Teva Daas, somebody from Chaim Berlin. We got two or three guys together, and there were thirty or forty Bochum of, uh, less than seventy, one, one... And we presented, and there was a Kinus Teyre. And they came in, gave a duchtet to Rav Charnikov. There was somebody Bochum, and so many people spoke, and he wanted to know vevosman geret, you know, what the papulum were about. It's a Kinus Teyre. Okay. That year, uh, I had a cousin from Eretz Yisroel who came with a kvutzeh, and he had a UTI infection and was taken to the hospital on Shvi shel Pesach. So Achash Del Pesach, by the farbrengen, he was in the hospital. Uh, you know, a guy comes for, to, to the Rebbe, and he's in the hospital. You can imagine the feeling. So Achash Del Pesach, I was s-standing in the first shul of Bochum, and I said to the Rebbe, "L'chaim for my shves da kin Shmuel Bakavetsky."

2:03:25 Speaker 4 This is an unusual thing that a bach is going to the Rebbe.

2:03:28 Speaker 1 Of course. So I said l'chaim for my shves da kin Shmuel Bakavetsky. I mean, I was within earshot. There was l'chaim with the Bochum. And then he said, "Nu, fazich." So l'chaim. And he goes like this, a full cup. So the guy got a big cup, and it filled up a big cup, and it's l'chaim. Drank the cup. And then he turns and looks for Shmuel Shmatkin and said, "Nu?" That was payback.

2:04:02 Speaker 4 Kinus Teyre.

2:04:05 Speaker 1 That was the kind of relationship.

2:04:07 Speaker 4 You just opened up my mind. Kinus Teyre, everyone knows Kinus Teyre. Now I understand. Kinus Teyre was meant to be a thing for fremde Bochum, and it was, you know, it was a whole different dynamic.

2:04:15 Speaker 1 Whole different dynamic.

2:04:16 Speaker 4 But from then-

2:04:17 Speaker 1 Am I right?

2:04:18 Speaker 4 Was the Rebbe Mishtatef in it like he did later in the Sichas?

2:04:22 Speaker 1 This was Chalam Ed. The Rebbe wasn't Mishtatef. There was-

2:04:25 Speaker 4 But there's no farbrengen, right?

2:04:25 Speaker 1 No fab-- Well, farbrengen was later on. Uh-

2:04:28 Speaker 4 No, 'cause later-

2:04:29 Speaker 1 Sichas HaShavua

2:04:29 Speaker 4 ... all the years, the Rebbe would give a Sicha. Yeah.

2:04:30 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no. This was what it was.

2:04:33 Speaker 4 Wow.

2:04:36 Speaker 1 So then the Kinus Teyre, Mitzvah of Shvu'os was always. Uh, and the Kinus Teyre at the end of, of Tishrei was always. That always happened. But, uh, after Pesach, it didn't happen. So for Bochum, this was the, the Kinus Teyre.

2:04:56 Speaker 4 Okay. Is there anything you wanna share bes- uh, from the Bochur Shiyan in seventeen seventy before I move on to your, uh, your marriage?

2:05:10 Speaker 1 Uh, personal things, uh, I, I don't have anything that I, I'm particularly interested in sharing.

2:05:16 Speaker 4 Okay. So where, where did you get married?

2:05:18 Speaker 1 I got married in Chofches.

2:05:20 Speaker 4 So there's always a story when people get married. So what, what, what's the story?

2:05:25 Speaker 1 Yeah, I got married. My wife, 58 years ago yesterday.

2:05:30 Speaker 4 Mazel tov.

2:05:31 Speaker 1 Yeah. I'll tell you a story. You want a story? I'll tell you a story. I became a Chosson, um, Yud Aleph Nissan. Yud Aleph Nissan, Chofches. There were no fabringens in Yud Aleph Nissan. And l'chaim was after Pesach. In those days, we would go up to the Rebbe with a bottle of mashke. The Rebbe would pour you, say l'chaim, pour some mashke for you, say l'chaim, and tell you to be mechallak for everybody else.

2:06:08 Speaker 4 If you, if you-- there's a simcha.

2:06:10 Speaker 1 Even though... I'm talking about the l'chaim.

2:06:12 Speaker 4 Oh, the l'chaim. The simcha.

2:06:12 Speaker 1 The l'chaim. Yeah. So I went up to the Rebbe with a, with a bottle, and the Rebbe said, "When is the l'chaim?" So I said, "No- basuntik nach Shabbos."

2:06:25 Speaker 4 It was, it was called a l'chaim?

2:06:26 Speaker 1 L'chaim.

2:06:27 Speaker 4 Not a vort or-

2:06:28 Speaker 1 A vort it was called.

2:06:28 Speaker 4 Called a vort?

2:06:29 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:06:29 Speaker 4 Yeah.

2:06:30 Speaker 1 A vort. Uh, he said, "Mistamest achizei hamaymer?" I just shook my head. "Mistamest azoy gezagt in yenen nigle." This never happened. L'chaim ulevracha, and okay, gehs and do it. Then we went in for yehudis together Thursday night, and we walked in, uh, a, a beaming smile I hadn't seen in a very, very long time. And to my wife be'echad. And ha'ah before that, so we went for matzah, my father-in-law, my father, and I. My father-in-law went first, and the Rebbe gave him a whole matzah, which is a tzon nodir, and he said, "A gantz a nachas."

2:07:22 Speaker 4 Hmm.

2:07:24 Speaker 1 And my father went, and he gave him a whole matzah. Said, "A gantz a nachas." And then I came, he gave me two little pieces. Anyway.

2:07:33 Speaker 4 Of the Rebbe-

2:07:34 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:07:34 Speaker 4 No, no, the Rebbe's major kuruv him to your shver-

2:07:37 Speaker 1 Major, of course.

2:07:39 Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, yeah.

2:07:39 Speaker 1 But the idea, mechabez on a brachah, mitazay mit-

2:07:41 Speaker 4 Right

2:07:44 Speaker 1 At any rate, so he come up for yehudis on Thursday night after the, the vort, and the Rebbe asks me, "Mistamest gezagt a maymer?" I shook my head. Um, "Vokh maymer?" So I said, "Fun Shabbos. A chazat of Shabbos, dik a maymer was Shabbos vorkh, and after Shabbos vorkh." So I saw the Rebbe was very pleased with that.

2:08:09 Speaker 4 The yehudis was right after the vort?

2:08:12 Speaker 1 Yehudis? The, the yehudis after the vort, yeah, after-

2:08:14 Speaker 4 Oh, okay.

2:08:14 Speaker 1 Shabbos vorkh was right after... It was Sunday after Shabbos vorkh was the, the vort.

2:08:18 Speaker 4 Okay. So you said fun Shabbos. And so the Rebbe nach-

2:08:20 Speaker 1 Then he said to me, "Azoy gezagt a yenen nigle?" So I was quiet. "Dus nisht gezagt? In papeler." So, so I said, "Ich hob ongeben, zogen, er mit mir ibergehakt." So he said, "Azoy batlan."

2:08:38 Speaker 4 Azoy batlan.

2:08:40 Speaker 1 I'm not done. We got married, um, yud beis, seven. Yud beis Elul, and, um, Sheva Brachos, like this, this Shabbos, mamash. Sheva Brachos. Uh, Shabbos was Sheva Brachos. Friday was day after the-- It was Thursday night. Friday was the day after the chassan, Shabbos. Uh, and then Sunday, I get a call from a Chadakov. Now, understand that getting a call... I had an apartment. Getting a phone in an apartment could take five to six weeks. So I didn't have a phone. So my brother comes running, and he says to me, "A Mechadakov is looking for you. He was on the phone. He was looking for you." So we were in the middle of Sheva Brachos. So he walked, walked us to my parents' house, and I called Rabbi Chadakov, you know, trembling, "Was gutik, du giton." Rabbi Chadakov says, "Mi kemidif ashborg ratachnun." So I, I was already in yeshivah a little bit. Okay, not terrible. "Du bist nig ven sumincha?" "No." Um, so he says, uh, "Ich vil dig ibol zen." Okay. I ran to Seven seventy. The middle of the afternoon, I ran to Seven seventy. I come in to Rabbi Chadakov and he says, "The Rebbe zogt, bistem shuldig an yenen nigle. You owe him an yenen nigle." So you have an opportunity, Sheva Brachos, to make up. He said, "Du chazast maimorim?" So normally, every bracha, chazat, Sheva Brachos, every day of Sheva, was a chazah of a maymer. Same maymer, different maymer. I had a couple of maimorim, so... "But

2:10:30 Speaker 1 nigle, who said nigle at a Sheva Brachos? Obid the Rebbe zogt bistem shuldig an yenen nigle. Vos zamestarn lain, yenen zog a yenen nigle af a Sheva Brachos. Ir binem shuldig." They were a member from the chassan.

2:10:47 Speaker 4 The vort.

2:10:49 Speaker 1 So that night, Sheva Brachos, my wife's grandfather, who was a tzelem a chosid, tzelem a shoichet, famous tzelem a shoichet, made a Sheva Brachos. And there were a couple of rebbes there. And I sat next to the matas nofaruv The ultimate zefuroof, not, not Kivi or the other sefirot. Ultimate zefuroof. And Chazal Maimel. I hadn't put together any nigle yet. Chazal Maimel. And I finished the Maimel. So the Matzah says, "It's Learns Kabbalah."

2:11:29 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:11:30 Speaker 1 He was so far removed, you know, from the idea. It's Learns Kabbalah.

2:11:36 Speaker 4 Because the Maimel has Kabbalah in it. Yeah.

2:11:37 Speaker 1 Yeah. Anyway, the next day I said, "Any nigle?" So the whole day I, I left my wife wherever, spent the whole day in 770 putting something together. And I put something together, and I had a very good kashas, a couple of very good kashas, but the tezlut's very shvach. It just so happened at that Sheva Brachos, the, uh, the Rebbe was given. Anyways, he became a Rebbe later on when I was there, and I asked gute kashas, and the teretz came through. So I remember saying, "Who is the gute kashas? Or who are the teretz?"

2:12:14 Speaker 4 Mm.

2:12:15 Speaker 1 So my uncle says, "Nuhe, Africa kashas and veteriteretz," you know.

2:12:20 Speaker 4 He didn't answer.

2:12:21 Speaker 1 I didn't have anything good with-

2:12:22 Speaker 4 No, he didn't, he didn't, but... Mm-hmm.

2:12:27 Speaker 1 But there was a very personal relationship with that.

2:12:29 Speaker 4 With the Rebbe, you think? Yeah.

2:12:34 Speaker 1 My wife had a miscarriage in the seventh month. You know, it's a, the traumatic experience already. So she went to the hospital, and there she had a pola. I mean, it was a, a m- a child, mamish, already had a stillborn child. It was ta- they're kuvu there, you know, the whole, the whole business. The next day, I get a call from the Chabadov. The Rebbe frik for smart and Bella Buster.

2:13:01 Speaker 4 Wow.

2:13:03 Speaker 1 So I told her I, I haven't been there, and it is the morning. So I haven't been there yet today. When, uh, "For seis misnig even. Gig lai charopa hin. Ruf mir tzuriq."

2:13:17 Speaker 4 Wow. Wow.

2:13:23 Speaker 1 This was a, it was a different, you know, the smaller alum, it's a different relationship.

2:13:27 Speaker 4 Yeah. Okay. Halavai people should do this to their, to their best friends.

2:13:35 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:13:36 Speaker 4 Okay. So you went to Kollel, right? There's a story over there.

2:13:43 Speaker 1 There's a story? I don't know story.

2:13:44 Speaker 4 I think we had in the, we had in the magazine. It had it. I was-

2:13:47 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, the magazine story. Okay.

2:13:48 Speaker 4 I don't know.

2:13:48 Speaker 1 I'll tell you that, that story. I'll tell you that story.

2:13:51 Speaker 4 You went to Kollel. So what happened? How did-

2:13:53 Speaker 1 I got married, as I said, yud beis elul. So a day or two after Tisha, I came into the Kollel. The Kollel was in the Viber Shul in 770. What is today Lebel Groner's room and the little area before, that was the Kollel. So I come to the Kollel, so to speak, and-

2:14:14 Speaker 4 It just started then?

2:14:15 Speaker 1 No, the Kollel started three years ago. Three years before.

2:14:17 Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, with the-

2:14:19 Speaker 1 And I come to the Kollel, and there's one guy sitting there. Yankele Goldberg is sitting there, and that's it.

2:14:25 Speaker 4 He was a younger man.

2:14:26 Speaker 1 A younger man. So I said, "Yankele, vu di Kollel?"

2:14:29 Speaker 4 One second, you reminded me. I think you saw Jacobson, got him to go to that, that-

2:14:33 Speaker 1 Yes

2:14:33 Speaker 4 ... maybe instead of you.

2:14:35 Speaker 1 That's what happened. Anyway, uh, "Vu di Kollel?" He said, "Dos di Kollel." Says, "It's 12 o'clock. Vu di Kollel? Badem Tish, we have about eight, nine guys already. This table, w- w- what?" So since I knew Rabbi Chabadov well, I went down the hall. I knocked at the door of Rabbi Chabadov's room. Rabbi Chabadov, uh, klil gin in Kollel. So I said, "Du in Viber Shul." He said, "I'm given a Viber Shul. It's stuck in Kollel, Dalton. Ken nit zayn." I said, "Okay." So it is.

2:15:12 Speaker 4 The Rebbe told you to go to Kollel?

2:15:14 Speaker 1 Yeah, sure.

2:15:14 Speaker 4 Yeah, okay.

2:15:15 Speaker 1 Of course it is. So, uh, he walked with me down the hall, through Gan Eden Atachtan, walked into the Kollel, and there's one Yankele Goldberg sitting there. He was very taken aback. Yeah, it's him. And he went back to his room. I knew it, it, it's, it's eating him up. I mean, I just showed him that the whole thing is a farce. I had an idea. They just bought the Kollel building behind, uh, what the library is today, behind 770, the Kollel building. Do you remember that?

2:15:53 Speaker 4 Not the library.

2:15:53 Speaker 1 The one that they knocked down.

2:15:54 Speaker 4 Oh, yeah.

2:15:55 Speaker 1 Yeah.

2:15:56 Speaker 4 I remember the Kollel is there.

2:15:56 Speaker 1 They just bought the Kollel building, and it was dormant. Nobody was there. It was locked.

2:16:03 Speaker 4 Why'd they buy it? Whatever. No one knew.

2:16:09 Speaker 1 The Rebbe bought it. The name on it was our inclined, but the Rebbe bought it.

2:16:14 Speaker 4 It's, um, right. Yeah.

2:16:16 Speaker 1 At any rate, I had an idea. Maybe they'll let us learn in that building. So an hour later, I went to Rabbi Chabadov, and I said, "I have an idea. Maybe you'll let us learn in that building. Bekaveh, it'll become the Kollel." "Gut, dank for your tour." I left. After Mincha, he calls me in. "Vere zein der choi." I said, "A choi a vos?" "Mir eif a ra po tishna, po bank, a bisl sforim, un, un, un, ve ve zein der choi effen in di tir un farshliss in di tir alle tog." Says, "Okay, ich ol zein der choi. Okay. I'm, I'm der choi now." So he says, "Ik hent morgen rein. Yinstein, kumen tzu mir far a shlissel. Come, you can come in to start taking over the building tomorrow. Come in and get the key from me." So I got the key, and we set up tables, and, uh, we turned it into some sort of... We had two rooms in the

2:17:20 Speaker 4 Sorry, but I'm stopping interjecting. Everyone got the semikhah after marriage then?

2:17:40 Speaker 1 Sure. You didn't start learning Yoreh Deah-

2:17:42 Speaker 4 You told me that before, but the Rebbe said in that sicha the Rebbe said that before-

2:17:45 Speaker 1 I'm just telling you what was. You're asking me kashas.

2:17:49 Speaker 4 I got the kasha.

2:17:50 Speaker 1 That happened later.

2:17:50 Speaker 4 Eh.

2:17:51 Speaker 1 Way, way later.

2:17:52 Speaker 4 No, it was in the middle of the sicha.

2:17:53 Speaker 1 No, no, no. Telling you what was.

2:17:55 Speaker 4 Okay.

2:17:56 Speaker 1 Shoyn.

2:17:57 Speaker 4 I'll figure it out, okay?

2:17:58 Speaker 1 Yeah. About three weeks later, I am, I daven Mincha with the Rebbe's minyan. And, uh, Chabad Lubavitch, I, I tarried a little bit, and about 25 to 4:00 I'm walking to the kollel. So I'm walking to the kollel, and as I see the Rebbe's walking, coming back from the kollel. The Rebbe and Rabbi Kadikov and, uh, and Binyamin Klein are coming in my, in the other direction. The Rebbe. I plastered myself against the wall, and the Rebbe gave me a very sharp look and walked on.

2:18:40 Speaker 4 Wh-which wall? By-

2:18:41 Speaker 1 Under the Friediker Rebbe's sukkah.

2:18:44 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:18:45 Speaker 1 And he gave me a very sharp look, and he walked on, and he walked on. I ran to the kollel, and there were two guys there. One was Latavius Zachanus Igorari, who was sitting and learning already. He was always that way. And one Yugman was standing with a tallis. The Rebbe just walked in. And thus he says to me, "The, the, the Rebbe was just here." I said, "I know." And a few minutes later, the other guy started to arrive, and we knew we're gonna get it now from Peter Zeiden. 15 minutes later, Binyamin Klein comes to the Rebbe, Ruft, Ed, Harikov Ruftach Alaman. All of you come to Rachakiv's office. Okay? So, uh, we came in. All of us knew already what kind of chelek we're gonna get. And Rachakiv said to us, "The Rebbe is given, and the Rebbe saw, first of all, Sfelt Nishmi Resazman. Zweitens, he walked around the tables, and he saw everybody is learning something else. Drittens felt Sforim. So these things have to have a shinim immediately." And he elaborated on that. And then he said, "The Rebbe had gezucht Ibergem Kaplan, a finif minut shpet is echshpet."

2:20:11 Speaker 4 Five minutes late is also late.

2:20:14 Speaker 1 Five minutes late is late. That was the Reinfeenker, the first days in the kollel. So first days, because it, for a while we were very much on time. And, uh, the Rebbe visited the kollel another time later on, but that's not the geir. This was Heirot. Then he would send us out Heirots all the time. So we had to keep a time clock, punch a clock, when we arrived, when we left, write it down for daily. And every month we had to give that to Binyamin Klein. Whatever he did with it, he did with it. And if you're not there a day, you had to write down why you were not there. Came late, you had to write why you were late.

2:20:59 Speaker 4 Hmm.

2:21:00 Speaker 1 So it was very much monitored.

2:21:04 Speaker 4 From then. So that was the kollel experience.

2:21:10 Speaker 1 So, Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi Zamashima was the, was the Rosh HaKolel. He came in, he was there every afternoon, not in the morning, but every afternoon. And we learned a lot from him. Rabbi Zamashima did rank in Ingol, you know. We learned a lot from him.

2:21:26 Speaker 4 Right.

2:21:26 Speaker 1 He didn't give a shiur. He was there to answer shailas. But, uh, yeah, shailas, he had to do the talk.

2:21:32 Speaker 4 So it's always a thing that the Rosh Kollel is like a Rav, sounds like. That's like a thing.

2:21:36 Speaker 1 First Rosh Kollel was Rabbi Avram Ziskind, and he was niftar in Tosh in the summer. In Yud Aleph, I'm sorry, Rosh Chidesh, Nisan, Tosh Chof Ches, he was niftar. And Rabbi Zamashima came right afterwards.

2:21:51 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:21:52 Speaker 1 This is the beginning of Chof Tes. There was no gap in between.

2:21:56 Speaker 4 Right. So I, I think it's time to discuss the post-kollel. So your, I mean, your, your trajectory from h-here onwards. So it wasn't like the typical, uh-

2:22:12 Speaker 1 It's kind of a long time ago, you know?

2:22:13 Speaker 4 Yeah. It wa- it wasn't the typical, you know, shlichas that, uh, that we would talk about. So what, what was going on with the shlichas then?

2:22:21 Speaker 1 It was a real shlichas.

2:22:22 Speaker 4 But what was going on with, with shlichas Chabad? Were shlichim going out then, and what was happening?

2:22:27 Speaker 1 The, the sayda was that anybody who wanted to go out of the kollel looked for hatsos. Talked to shluchim. How many shluchim were there? How many cities had shluchim? So occasionally, Rabbi Chadakov would call somebody in and suggest to him, "I wanna go to... Maybe you'll go to this city or that city," like Shomo Weinberg. He c- he called to Shomo Weinberg and told him, "How about Kansas City?" So he went to Kansas City.

2:22:53 Speaker 4 He's your age.

2:22:54 Speaker 1 Yes. He went to Kansas City, um, during my time. Um, and others, you had to get hatsos.

2:23:04 Speaker 4 Didn't, like, shlichas stop in a certain way those years?

2:23:07 Speaker 1 It stopped. The rachras was on you to come to the Rebbe with hatsos.

2:23:11 Speaker 4 That changed from whatever.

2:23:12 Speaker 1 That was the change then. So you had to collect hatsos from other people, or go into Rabbi Chadakov and ask him if the- he has hatsos. And occasionally he would have hatzah. Like a Moshe Shimon Lazov went into, to, uh, Rabbi Chadikov, and Rabbi Chadikov said to Detroit.

2:23:29 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:23:30 Speaker 1 So he came into Rabbi Chadikov, and he, he directed you if you asked him. But it wasn't that Rabbi Chadikov called you in, except in v-rare occasions that he called you and actually told you to go X, Y, and Z.

2:23:43 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:23:46 Speaker 1 So Nusi Gerari, he called in, that was after me already. He called him in and said, "Go to Albany."

2:23:54 Speaker 4 To Buffalo.

2:23:54 Speaker 1 Uh, to, to, to Buffalo. That was, he called him in. But, uh, it was occasionally. Now, the second year in Kollel, you started to think already, what this, what that. So my shver insisted, "You, you have to go into the rabbinate. You have the kelim for it. Go into the rabbinate."

2:24:16 Speaker 4 And he was a rav.

2:24:17 Speaker 1 He was a rav. Um, so I went anxious, but I look for hatzoas. First hatzoas came from Berel Shemtov. "Go to Windsor, Ontario. They're looking for a rabbi there. And go-- you to go to Windsor, and Win-Windsor's next to Detroit."

2:24:35 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

2:24:35 Speaker 1 "So we'll, we'll develop a relationship," et cetera, et cetera. So I went to Windsor and got a offer from them. So once I had an offer, I have to have kamma hatzoas, and had an offer from, from, uh, Atlantic City for a shul, a solid offer. And then I had an offer for a shul in, in Richmond, Virginia. And I was going to go to Richmond, so I went into the Rebbe for yechidus for my yom im al edus. And I went and asked-- the Rebbe knew about these hatzoas because I had written to him every time before I went and after I went. So hatzoas were all, uh, something I wrote to the Rebbe about. Even had a roas about it. What kind of salary to ask for, the Rebbe I roar. So I went and, and I f-I figured the Rebbe would ask one of these three things. I told the Rebbe, this was on a Tuesday, that, uh, for Shabbos I'm going to Richmond for a probe, and which of these hatzoas I should be mekabel. Okay. So the Rebbe says to me, "For what Wilson is ranking principal?" It was like a thunderbolt. Where does that come from? So I'm quiet.

2:25:55 Speaker 4 Rebbe's telling you to be a principal.

2:25:57 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe, and then the Rebbe says to me, "Your brother-in-law is leaving Norfolk, Virginia. Why don't you go to Norfolk and see that they take you there?"

2:26:04 Speaker 4 Who's your brother-in-law?

2:26:05 Speaker 1 Matas Kanter.

2:26:06 Speaker 4 Oh, he was in Norfolk.

2:26:06 Speaker 1 He was there, and he was leaving.

2:26:08 Speaker 4 He was a principal.

2:26:09 Speaker 1 He was a principal. Matas worked hard to become a principal. He got a degree, midgantze nigesheft, and then he was a, a vice principal someplace else, and he was in the scabble as a principal. Zol zeme zol de onemen. See that they should accept you.

2:26:25 Speaker 4 So Rebbe wanted Rabbechingenman to take over then.

2:26:28 Speaker 1 Whatever it was, see they should accept you. How do you go to a place and make sure they accept you? Especially the-- I had no credentials. I never taught a class. Where does that come from? And then he says to me, "Ben Geritz, Richmond, you can go there if you want for Shabbos, or better still, you can tell them that you're going to Norfolk first, and if Norfolk doesn't work out, then you talk about Richmond." A thunderbolt out of the who knows where. But for Shabbos I should go-- but after Shabbos I should go to Richmond, to Norfolk. So I call up Matas, and I said to him, "We're coming for Shabbos." He says, "We're leaving next week. You know, w-with, with Samal. I told him the yechidus." He said, "I don't get it. I had to work out in being an assistant principal someplace and get a master's degree and have taught. Why would you think they'll even think about you?" I said, "Listen to me. The Rebbe said I should go to Norfolk. I'm coming to Norfolk. I can sleep in your room. W-w-well, that, that's all I'm looking for is a bed." Okay. So we went to Norfolk, and we arranged for an interview. And miraculously, they, they ga-hired me.

2:27:54 Speaker 4 So that's how you become a principal.

2:27:56 Speaker 1 So I said, "I know nothing about this thing. Why am I becoming principal? It's crazy."