Ep. 66: Hearing Firsthand How Rebbetzin Chana Described Her Son The Rebbe with Rabbi Mayer Plotkin

00:00 Speaker 1 So I go around, I think, who's in front of me? The Rebbe's mother. I take a look at the regular, hmm, it's a bag. I know what he wanted. I mean, she's gonna take the bag to go over there. She shouldn't have to walk. She's in the middle. It's a half a block. I should, I should, I should carry it in for her. I said, "Okay." Anyway, so I did it. So as soon as she, she finished, she, she-- I, I was waiting right behind over there. I was by the cash on the side. So as soon as she finished, she's putting the money back, I run with it over there, and I take the bag, and I go, "Nein, nein, nein, ich kann es tragen. I can carry it also." I said, "Baruch Hashem, I know the Rebbe said you can carry it over there." I have to say something, she was angry. "Ach, kann das nicht. Was sagt der Matthias? Why do you have to bother this and that?" Baruch, you know. So the idiot, Meyer Plotkin says, "I'm going that way anyway." She says, "770 is this way, and I'm going this way."

00:54 Speaker 2 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 Plotkin. How are you?

01:36 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem.

01:38 Speaker 2 Okay, thank you so much. I'm very excited to talk to you. I know there's a lot to talk about. Um, how about we begin with where you were born, when you were born, and the, the background to where you were born, into what?

01:53 Speaker 1 All right. I was born in Montreal in 1942. The Yiddishkeit then, if you ever read, uh, Fiadel Rebbe Sichos from Mamish, the first years when he came to, to America in nineteen forty, in those years, and Montreal was the same thing as New York. New York, may-maybe New York was a little bit, a little bit different, but it's so big. And that was that Yiddishkeit was in an all-time low everywhere. And the main reason is, is the Rebbe didn't go into, but the Mitzius is that it wasn't a five-day week, it was a six-day week. The day off was Sunday. And most of the Yidden in North America, and forget about Canada, we have to speak to United States, the same thing was in the United States, and the Fiadel Rebbe saw this in nineteen forty. And that was that most of the Yidden that came were from Russia or Poland, 'cause they had to come, because of the Matzav, and they came to America. Nearly all of them were Shomrei Torah and Mitzvos. The last thing they wanted was to work on Shabbos. The language they didn't have, the background they didn't have, so they got work, and they worked to, to survive, and it was a six-day week, and you had to work on Shabbos.

03:10 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

03:11 Speaker 1 Or else pick up the slip Friday and go look for a job. And that's what they did at beginning. That's a, it's a standard, it's a, was a standard thing in North America. When I was born, Montreal was a big ci-

03:24 Speaker 2 When, when were you born?

03:25 Speaker 1 I was born in forty two. Fiadel Rebbe came in nineteen forty. I was-- It was no difference. And the Montreal, New York, or Detroit, or Chicago, whether it's all the same thing, it's all Yidden, it's all European Yidden, and they didn't come from... They only came from two countries. Most of them were Russia or Ukraine. Then it wasn't crazy thing like today. It was one country. And, uh, and well, Polish also, big anti-Semitin. And they got tired of it over there, so let's go to America where it's free, which made sense also. But my-- is, uh, they went away from Yiddishkeit. Where I was, I was raised, I was raised in a house. My parents came way before, way before, and a hund- not epes, not, not a ma shehu mevate geveyn, they didn't compromise on anything in Yiddishkeit. At ke'dei kach, the moshav I have to give is that, that when it came to kashrus, when it came to kashrus, even when Lubavitch was there already, and even when Lubavitch Montreal had Lubavitch shchitah, in our house, a piece of meat never got into the house without my mother soaking it up according, according to Yahudia, and salting it and making it kosher. And when a chicken was bought, the only thing they did to the chicken, they cut off the head, and they flicked the feathers. But to open up the chicken, and to take out all the junk inside, and to inspect it, 'cause a lot of times you could find something

04:53 Speaker 1 which I found out also. I was a little kid, that there's a sheilah, there's a question about the chicken, and every now and then I had to go to the-- I was a small kid, I had to go with this little piece into the Rav, who was a big Lubavitcher Chassid, Rabbi Binyomin Sin. He's a mesachtah bifnei atzmo, that's a different story. And he would usually, it would-- Well, I remember once or twice that he said the word treif, but it was, it hardly happened. What I want to bring out that our house was a hundred percent frum, and I never walked down without a mispelle. I never walked without a yarmulke with tzitzit. And that's how I was raised. And eventually, when I got older-

05:32 Speaker 2 That was unusual, though?

05:33 Speaker 1 Oh, it was unusual. I, it, it, I had no friends. I couldn't have friends. My parents refused me. I couldn't have a friend that wasn't, wasn't religious. The end is, if I was six, seven years old, so they're gonna call me into the house, and they're gonna give me a cookie, and this and that, and no way, I was not allowed to walk into the house. It was like a church, a church, you know. And, uh, but I had a handful, mamish a handful of frumer boys just like me, and we grew up together And I had an older brother who was nearfter, and he's the same story, you know? And I don't wanna go into detail, but I just wanna tell you it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. But we, we, by, we... I was raised like that. I didn't know of anything else, you know? You know?

06:17 Speaker 2 I'll give one-

06:17 Speaker 1 I'll give you, I'll give you one example. I, I tell it to my kids today 'cause they wouldn't understand. Imagine when it comes Friday night, I'm five years old, six years old, seven years, and I was a little shrimp too. And then, and my father comes home from shul and makes kiddush and ma- and makes a motzi. And, uh, and uh, and my mother... But fish, fish wasn't e- It wasn't like today. My mother took a ch- a fish, a whole chicken, skinned it, and knocked off the head, and, and, uh, but don't ask till she ma- And she had to grind it, and there were no electric grinders. Till she made the gefil- It was a half a day job just to make the knisher, the piece of gefilte fish. And we had made fish, and then my, the, my w- I went, "They're going to bench." And I asked my mother or my father, "Uh, why are you benching? What about soup and lokshen and, and chicken and, uh, and, and kugel? After the fish, you're benching?" She said, "Yes. The shochet said that till he gives the green light, he says, 'Okay,' I shouldn't buy no chicken and no meat." I didn't ask no questions. I didn't even s- I, I under- I understood and I d- that, that's how it was.

07:27 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

07:28 Speaker 1 The shochet was like really, he was, he, he, God, he was Lubavitcher before, before everything, before the 42 it became, all that. He's a name, his name, first name was Shmuel. He's a- named after the Reb Maharash. Look up your calendar and you'll see how old he was. And, uh, but he was a part of our family. That's how I was raised.

07:48 Speaker 2 But there wasn't a connection to Lubavitch per se?

07:50 Speaker 1 No connection Lubav- I had Lubavi- Later I got Lubavitcher friends 'cause I had a two-wheeler bike, and, uh, hope he's not, he's an Olam HaBa, but he was like, like a brother to me, and we were, and I, he came later because-

08:04 Speaker 2 Who?

08:04 Speaker 1 His name was Shmuel Menachem Mendel Botman, and his name is Mulia Botman. I don't, I never knew his name is Shmuel Menachem Mendel. I knew him Mulia, and then he drove my two-wheeler bicycle, you know?

08:14 Speaker 2 He lived in Montreal?

08:15 Speaker 1 In Montreal. They, he didn't, they didn't go to New York. They came from Europe to Montreal, then they went to New York. I'll give you an example. I had other ones. Rodol was there before me. Not before me. Yeah, before me. His father came with the nine bochurim in '41, a year before me. Wasn't married. I was raised with Mo- with Rodol boys. I knew Rodol. I knew... If there was a Shomer Shabbos boy in Montreal, I knew him. If we had a

08:39 Speaker 2 So where did you go to school?

08:42 Speaker 1 Where did I go to school? Well, I, I, there was another yeshiva here in Montreal besides Lubavitch, which was also lousy. Lubavitch was lousy, and the other place was also lousy. I learned there, I don't know how much I learned, but I learned there till bar mitzvah, till I was, I think, 14. And then I decided I got... Me, and not only me, a few boys together, we decided we're going to leave Montreal. As BM is at that time already, I was older, and the zal then in Montreal was 20 or 30 or 40 times better than 770. I'll give you now only one example. You shouldn't understand what I'm talking about, but these two people became big people in Chabad, in Lubavitch, in Ruchniyus. And that is that, and these two bo- men, p- these two boch- They were bochurim then. These two bochurim had a very, very big influence on me. And through me, they got through to other ones, too. And I always looked up to them. Uh, they were older brothers for me. And, um, then, and, and, uh, I had a

09:55 Speaker 2 You didn't say who these two are.

09:57 Speaker 1 Yeah, these two guys, one of them, we called him Yankel Shway. Eventually, he became the Rov of, uh, of Crown Heights, and the other one became the senior mashpia in Ohel Torat. We called him Pinny. His name is Pinchas, Pinny Korv. These two were like brothers to me, but that we'll leave it for later. But after my bar mitzvah, and I was wasting my time in Montreal, and I was a learner. Anyway, bekitzur, they shipped us off. They, the, the Lubavitcher bochurim really was a different bochur, Sholom Berger Korv. He worked with them-

10:31 Speaker 2 Who, who sat in, he sat in this seat a few weeks ago.

10:34 Speaker 1 Huh?

10:34 Speaker 2 He sat in this seat a few weeks ago.

10:36 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah?

10:37 Speaker 2 Yeah.

10:37 Speaker 1 So he, he shipped us off to Pittsburgh. We got to Pittsburgh, and w- we wanted a school, not a house. We were kids after bar mitzvah. And, uh, the others weren't learners, but I was a learner. And we didn't last there long, maybe a few weeks. The Rosh Yeshiva, really, he didn't want I should go. I remember like today, and he told me years later that he missed me, I should have stayed. But anyway, I made a mistake. And his name was Zalman Shimon Dvorkin. He became the Rov here in, uh, Crown Heights. He was the Rosh Yeshiva then. And I went with him. I was very close with him later, but that's nothing. Anyway, I ended up in Torat Vodaas.

11:18 Speaker 2 What year is this?

11:20 Speaker 1 This was, what year? I was born in '42. I was born, perhaps at bar mitzvah, let's say '14, '15. '56, yeah. Okay, I'll tell you what year it was. Tov Shini Yutai, I came into the zal. At the beginning of Yud Shevat. Begin- beginning of Yud Shevat, that means September of '56.

11:40 Speaker 2 Torat Vodaas.

11:41 Speaker 1 Torat Vodaas.

11:42 Speaker 2 In Williamsburg?

11:43 Speaker 1 In Williamsburg. It was in Williamsburg. A big, the, it was a big yeshiva. It was a big yeshiva. It was in Williamsburg and was run properly. They had a dormitory. Not, and now Lubavitch wasn't run properly. This was run properly. Lubavitch dormitory was a dump, and this had a self-contained four-story build, uh, dormitory. Four-story building, 23 rooms on every floor Bedford and Dean had a basement, a loch. You know what a loch is? A hole. Don't tell me, I was there. I slept into that hole. And and it was a yeshiva, and I lasted there for two years. It was good. I got away from Montreal. I saw a yeshiva. It was run properly. But then after the two years, and coming back to Montreal, so there was few things that... As a matter of fact, it came Chanukah, and Chanukah we were off in the yeshiva. So I'm a boy in Montreal, I'm off of yeshivas. What am I gonna do in New York? Look at, look at the four walls? I said goodbye, went back home. Went back home. What am I gonna do back home? So I went to the Zal. You know, when you had this bochurim, then there was one bochur that stood out. There was Pinny Tacken, there was Yankush Feyadakt, but that, but that really, really developed when I was already in the yeshiva. But they also, they also put in, I don't say no, but it was one guy because I met him the first year that

13:03 Speaker 1 I was in Torah Vodaas. He was also in Torah Vodaas. He was born in Williamsburg, and he does not come from Lubavitcher family, and he became-- and I be- and he-- I became close to him in Torah Vodaas. And then, and the second year when I came to Montreal, he says to me, "Meyer, get out of there. I went to kindergarten Torah Vodaas." He was born in Williamsburg. His father was a lawyer. He lived right across from Satmar, from Satmar's, uh, uh, Satmar's Beis Medrash. And, uh, on Ross, Ross and Bedford. And he says, "Meyer, get out and get over there. Come to Montreal. We'll learn chavrusa." I should have listened to him.

13:37 Speaker 2 Who, who, who?

13:37 Speaker 1 Is... Oh, who is his name? His name is Shmuel.

13:39 Speaker 2 Oh.

13:40 Speaker 1 This Shmuel when I was in, uh, in London, we were, we were like brothers. I'm not gonna go into him 'cause that'll take an hour or two, so better just drop it. Believe me, what I know what I'm talking about. And he kept on bugging me and bugging me I should leave. And I made a mistake. I should've leave talked to you. I said, "It's not nice. I just leave. I don't come back. You don't even say goodbye?" He said, "I do. I have so many to meet. I won't even know that you're missing." It's true, but I was a kid. I was young. Anyway, I stood all there for two years. And then I came to the Zal. Came then to the Zal.

14:11 Speaker 2 One second.

14:11 Speaker 1 Now, my, now, oh, now my rebbe. Okay, I was two years in New York. Yes. Uh, Shabbos there was no yeshiva. You had to eat by balabatim. Uh, and they gave me a balabos. The w- uh, and the father-in-law of somebody who's very famous today, they made... He was a nice guy, though. I always liked him. Moshe Wolfson, he became the, the mashgiach in the column of the-

14:37 Speaker 2 Moshe. He-

14:37 Speaker 1 So he lived upstairs, and he-- we-- he-- and he lived upstairs, and I ate Shabbos downstairs by his father-in-law.

14:43 Speaker 2 Was he working in Torah Vodaas then, in the-

14:45 Speaker 1 Yeah, he was working. He was a melamed in Torah Vodaas in the yeshiva. Not in the mesivta, in the yeshiva. They had a v- maybe three, four... Torah Vodaas had over 2,000 talmidim. It wasn't a small yeshiva. Don't think it was a small thing. It was the yeshiva of North America. And, uh, but then the maase is that, yes, I went to the rebbe. I used to walk many times. I knew Shabbos Rov, there's gonna be a farbrengen. It wasn't like today. There was no farbrengens. Shabbos-

15:10 Speaker 2 Who, who, how, how'd you end up there? Who, who? 'Cause you were already connected-

15:12 Speaker 1 Oh, no. I, look, I had Lubavitcher friends, and I... That's all. And I, and, uh, and, and there was a Shmu-- And then I-- And there was Shmuel. I, I, I knew, I knew Lubavitcher guys. Not in New York, not really in New York, but some of them were also in New York. And I, I, I wasn't a w- I wasn't a Lubavitcher, but if I knew Lubavitch, yeah, I knew quite a few guys in Lubavitch. And I knew the Lubavitcher rebbe is a big person. I was-- I saw the Satmar Rebbe, and I saw his tish, when all that stuff affected me at minus 10. But look, look, the rebbe is the rebbe, you know. So I used to walk. I was a kid, 15, 16. I mean, I wasn't a kid. I was a yeshiva bachur already. I was there two years. And I would walk to it. It was a sukkah. 770 wasn't built. This was '57, '58. So I'll just mention one thing which negeah to me, which negeah to me. I ca-- I go to farbrengens, and I see a lot of times in the end of farbrengens, the rebbe says something which I really didn't understand what he's saying. And that is one word which I knew I saw that word somewhere, but I have no idea where I saw it. A maase, what a word. I don't know if it's Hebrew, if it's Spanish, if... I don't know what it's a word, chitas. Now, chitas is, I don't

16:20 Speaker 1 know what kind of word it was, and rebbe keeps on repeating it. It was, "You have to say chitas, chitas." Anyway, I found out what it is. So Chumash I'm yeshiva bachur. Uh, Tehillim, it happens to be the Mincha shacharis they would say not the Yom Tehillim. They would say a few kabbalah Tehillim, which I never said. But Tehillim, Tehillim. Batanya. So I bought myself a Batanya. Went to a store, I don't know where, probably in Crown Heights, and I bought a Batanya. And I was a yeshiva bachur. I'm not a guy off the street, you know. And this is my second year. I think it was in Tofshnit Ches, 'cause then I got a letter from the rebbe. And I opened up a Batanya. Okay, I was a yeshiva bachur. I'm, but a maase with the s'faris, the, the s'faris, this and that. I don't know. I'm s'faris, you count. I know you count money. I, I, I didn't understand these. I didn't understand the lashon, you know. So what I'm... And, and a maase that I hear that the Lubavitch, the rebbe, okay, the Frierdiker Rebbe, you have, you have to say it every day. So I'll say it every day. I, I saw something. I, most of it I understood. I was a yeshiva bachur. But it came to the lashon from, from Batanya, you know, it was like I didn't understand what it is. So what am I supposed to do? Should I say it or I shouldn't say it? In

17:30 Speaker 1 other words, I, I could say it. It's a word. Uh, well, I'm not gonna get rich by not saying it. But if I don't understand it, do I have to say it? So I didn't know what to do. So what do you do? You write to the rebbe. "Dear Rebbe, tell me what to do." I wrote a letter to him, and he answered me a long Hebrew... I wrote in Lashon HaKodesh, 'cause write Yiddish, I, I was born Yiddish. I'm fluent in Yiddish. I was not taught Yiddish. In our house, it was more Yiddish than English. My parents were fluent in English too, but there was more Yiddish. And I had a bubbe in the house living that she didn't speak English at all. So I was born with Yiddish. So Yiddish, I, was my first language, just like English And when I have to speak with Yankush Friedman, Pina Cora, they didn't understand a half a word of English, you know? Thought they're nice, but only Yiddish. And even at Torat Vodaas, everything, the shiurim were in Yiddish. They weren't in English. And on my shiurim anyway, maybe there were some who were able to speak English. But, uh, the... Anyway, BeKitzur Rebbe answered me a long letter. B- because the is what he f-- in the end of the letter, "Even if you have questions, what the question should be addressed to, but it shouldn't stop you from doing it." And since that I got that letter, there hasn't been one day in

18:44 Speaker 1 my life, maybe for my reason I had an operation, I used to think, "What?" But, but, but I remember I caught up when, when I had an a- appendix, nothing special, you know? But anyway, I never missed a, um, a, a day of chitas. And then when it came the second year of Torat Vodaas-

19:00 Speaker 2 That's a-

19:00 Speaker 1 Yeah.

19:01 Speaker 2 That's a very beautiful, uh, story and letter. Um, I just have a few questions before you get to the second year of Torat Vodaas.

19:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

19:08 Speaker 2 So you wrote a letter to the Rebbe. Were you in Yechidus before, or you just, that was-

19:12 Speaker 1 Yechidus? No. Yechidus, I never went on Yechidus till I went to yeshiva.

19:15 Speaker 2 Okay, so this is y- so this is your first personal interaction based on this letter.

19:18 Speaker 1 First, the first, uh, first shacharis that I had with the Rebbe.

19:21 Speaker 2 So what did you see different by the Rebbe that you knew that, uh, uh, something different? What, what did you see?

19:26 Speaker 1 It's a good thing you weren't by the other... You know, by the other Rebbe. I'm, and I'm not here, I'm telling facts. That's how it is over there. You don't believe in this. Let's, let's say the m- the, the main Rebbe in Williamsburg, the Satmar Rebbe, Reb Yoelish. Yeah, let's say about him.

19:39 Speaker 2 What happened when you came to the Rebbe? What's the contrast?

19:41 Speaker 1 Oh, by the Rebbe? Did you ever see that behind the Rebbe there's about 10 Yidden with long w-white beards? That this is Rebbe number three. Not the Rebbe number one, not Rebbe number two. This is Rebbe number three, and they were raised by the first Rebbe when they were talmidim in a s-as-- in a small town called Lubavitch, and he was the Rebbe Rashab. And a Yid like Shmuel Levitin, who the Frierdiker Rebbe was three years older of him, he used to tell this to us. And Neil, I, I was glad to there. I was once in Lubavitch. And his father, the Rashab, wanted to teach... That wanted the Frierdiker Rebbe was a small boy, that he should be taught, he should be taught swimming. The Gemara speak, the father has to teach his kid. Problem is, in Lubavitch, and I once ended up Lubavitch without going to the mikveh because I c- there was no mikveh to go to. And I was in Lubavitch, and I was only there for a few hours. And there's the c-- there's the, the Rebbe Maharash and the Tzemach Tzedek are there. I didn't go to the mikveh. There's no mikveh there. There was nothing there. And the b- but it was with the buildings there. The buildings, ca-call them whatever you want, but I wanted to go to, to the scene. That's what I came for. I didn't come to see the, the buildings. So they went-- I went into the river, and I went up. So

20:54 Speaker 1 I put in a one-foot board. The, the, the, the, the, the, the mud went and the nearly, nearly swallowed me up, you know? It was, it was even hard to be talking with. So, so the Frierdiker Rebbe didn't want-- he wanted to teach him. Where's he gonna teach him? In the bath. So you have to go into the river. Rebbe didn't wanna go into the river. He said... And the Rashab was pushing, "You have to learn good swimming. He's a small boy." He says, "I'm only-- I'm not gonna go myself. I wanna go with a friend." So the Rashab says, "Okay, take a friend and go together." Who is the friend? Shmuel Levitin. He s-- And he used to farbrengen with us. He was our mashpia. He says, "I, I, I have to go swimming." Okay, he was three years older than me. Even though... So I was nine... He said he was nine, and I was six. So what's, what's the, what's the, what's the difference? Or he was, or he was eight, and what... It's not as, uh, what's the big difference? I was raised over here, uh, you know, with all those achten. And I'm taking a look, and I'm seeing these old, these old, old people who are older than the Rebbe, a-a-and they sit, they don't move. They, you might think they're glued to the seat. You ever see the Shmuel get up and then get up and, you know, just sigh or, or, you know, move, make it to,

21:58 Speaker 1 you know... They sit and they don't move. S- a lot, a lot of times I used to think, "What about the bath?" So some of them, like, they had to go to the restroom. They went out, and they had to go, you know? But other farbrengen, and this is not, you know, uh, the Belzer T-- the Satmar Tisch for an hour. Rebbe sits there, you just-- because they started farbrengen eight o'clock. I remember him that he ca- eight o'clock, and I, I ended up in yeshiva, I ended up in yeshiva taking a bus from, from, from there for Crown Heights. I ended up in yeshiva for Shacharis, seven o'clock, 'cause they were... Everything finished at 6:00. I got a bus. You wait for 6:00, you have to wait for a bus. People don't take it so early. And a, a whole night. And they're sitting there like glue. So you ever see they should get up and jo-uh, john and talk... You ever see they should talk to each other. They just sit there glued to the seats. And they were very close to the Frierdiker Rebbe, more than they're close to the Frierdiker Rebbe. One of them was Rabbi Simpson, that he couldn't understand the Frierdiker Rebbe's language. People were in Yechidus, and he couldn't understand it. So the Frierdiker Rebbe said, "You be there, and I give you a broche," and it was Mekubalim, "that when you walk out, you're gonna forget everything that you heard." And he, okay, it's... There were some

23:04 Speaker 1 who were able to understand him, but the vast, vast majority couldn't understand him. The Rebbe even mentioned this in a farbrengen a few times, how it affected his speech, when the Rebbe had to speak, and it was hard to understand. And he sits like a g- he sits like a clo... And he, he took care of Yechidus by the, by the Frierdiker Rebbe. He was constantly inside by the Frierdiker Rebbe. Yeah, much older than the Rebbe, you know? You ever, you ever, you ever see him getting up over there, you know, and Rebbe like... You ever see them move? No, that's... I'm not, I'm not, I'm not making them the... You know, but a track. But you see what they're by them? They're sitting with... They're, they're, they're in front of him, right in... He, he's, he's shooting the bull with them.

23:43 Speaker 2 By the others.

23:44 Speaker 1 Ah, it's a joke, the whole thing.

23:46 Speaker 2 So that was a extreme-

23:48 Speaker 1 Man, I had, I had zero effect. I had to do something at night. What am I supposed to do when four o'clock is Lich Bencher, six is... I finished eating six or seven. So what am I supposed to do? I'm a young kid. I should go to sleep seven o'clock. Do you go to sleep seven o'clock? I can't fall asleep. So what should I do? Claps a couple of times, bang my, bang, bang my head against the wall.

24:04 Speaker 2 So you saw this, this was something you saw immediately.

24:06 Speaker 1 Yeah, shalom al bilum to over there.

24:07 Speaker 2 Okay, so back to the second year in, uh, in Torat Vodaas.

24:10 Speaker 1 Back, back to the second year. So there, so that year, that year Shmuel was learning in Montreal, and I had a lousy Rebbe. I think he, he was a time he was in Shanghai, uh, with the Litvishe, with the Litvishe. Now, nobody had a shacharis with Lubavitch. Rabbi Rifkin was Rosh Yeshiva. He was in a different world than Beis Medrash. I had nothing to do with him. And he didn't mix in Lubavitch at all with his job. He said his shiur, and he went home. I mean, he would speak with his talmidim probably, you know. And it came the second year, so I was very f-fed up a little bit of Torat Vodaas, and the Beis Medrash in Montreal was a Knackered Beis Medrash. And the fact that there was two bochurim that I looked up to them a lot, and it was more than two. Shmuel Lowe didn't let go of me. He says, "Come to learn in Montreal. We'll learn chavrusa. Don't go back to New York." That I couldn't do. I didn't have the guts. But tack, when it came the year I came to learn in yeshiva, I came... The, the year that I came mamash to learn with the ganz knak was Elul, Yud Ches.

25:13 Speaker 2 Montreal?

25:14 Speaker 1 Montreal.

25:14 Speaker 2 You didn't ask the Rebbe before. This was y- before-

25:17 Speaker 1 No, I didn't ask the Rebbe. I didn't have what to ask the Rebbe. Maybe I asked a brocha.

25:21 Speaker 2 You were never in Yechidas with him?

25:22 Speaker 1 Oh, I was in Yechidas, yes. I was never in Yechidas before, no.

25:25 Speaker 2 Right.

25:26 Speaker 1 My yom im alah is Simchas Torah, and, uh, and e- every year I went and motze Simchas Torah in Yechidas since, uh, since Yuteres until, uh, u- until it stopped Yechidas, in all the years. Besides that, were the other times I went during the year too. And, uh, but, but the, the main thing is the bochur made a big, big roshem on me, and I used to think to myself, the Alter of Bochur Beis Medrash. You know what a Beis Medrash in the Torvadass was? They had a Beis Medrash, I would say between 200 and 300 bochurim. Montreal? Pfft, 50 maximum. They put what? It was one big room. How much can you put in there? I'm not gonna guarantee it was 50. It was 45. Don't take me to the, to, uh, the in toyre, you know? But at five o'clock in the winter, whenever it is ma'ariv, they all daven ma'ariv, and 80 or 90% of the Beis Medrash went to... What was the name of the college in Brooklyn? Anyway, to the, to the college who, to-

26:22 Speaker 2 Brooklyn College.

26:23 Speaker 1 Brooklyn College.

26:24 Speaker 2 Torvadass.

26:25 Speaker 1 They went. And I used to think to myself, "Yankel Shweizer bochur, Shalom Berger korf is a bochur, who's the other one? Pinny korf is a bochur, and these yogahs are bochurim" . And I think, I figure, I mean, you can't even com- compare it. I mean, it's two worlds. It's mamash two worlds. That's it, you know? And I have a Shmulou on my head, born and raised in, in, in, uh, in Williamsburg, went to kindergarten Torvadass, you know? And he keeps on bugging me, and it's all I learned tak a chavrusa with Shmulou.

26:55 Speaker 2 So you went to Montreal.

26:56 Speaker 1 Shmulou, and I came to Montreal and... But I went in heads first. I went in head first. And yes, I had Yechidas. That, that year, Yuteres were fisher, I had Yechida. I had Yech- But I, Yechidas I had every year. I had, I, I went where I was besides that, uh, if I wanted to go. Me and Chadikov got along.

27:14 Speaker 2 What was the story? There wasn't a story that you did a Rebbe in Torvadass?

27:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. There's a... I, I'm, I'm f- I'm the wisht- I'm, I'm, I'm, I... The, the story... Here, I'll tell you about a story.

27:24 Speaker 2 You're the makker of the story.

27:25 Speaker 1 I'm the makker for the story.

27:27 Speaker 2 So what did you hear? What, what-

27:28 Speaker 1 Oh, what's the story? The story was Torvadass was big. They had four or five buildings, and some of them were big buildings in the, in Williamsburg. They controlled Mil- Williamsburg, and Williamsburg was a big center for frum Yidden then, and, and, and those years. Later, Crown Heights became even bigger than C- but that's a different story. And they had buildings, and you know, when you start borrowing money from the banks just to keep, keep on going, you have to show some security. So what are they gonna show security? Sifrei and Rambams? They won't get nothing. So they have the buildings. So they mortgaged all the buildings.

28:06 Speaker 2 Where'd you hear the story from?

28:07 Speaker 1 Oh. Oh, where, okay. Where did I hear the story from? There was a Rosh Yeshiva in Torvadass before my times, a big Rosh Yeshiva, Shlomo Heiman. He was considered the number one Rosh Yeshiva, him and the one from Lakewood. They say his shiurim were better than the one from Lakewood, but he didn't want one to get in trouble with him, so... But he said big, really set top shiur, and he was a top Rosh Yeshiva. He set shiur before he came to America, and he was a top over there. When it came his yohrtzeit, so they made one evening, and we had to go there too. G- even though we're Mesivta, Mesivta bochurim have to be there, and they took attendance. They took attendance by davening too. There wa- there was no hefke. If you didn't come or you came late for davening, it was recorded. You had to show up, you know, and sometimes there was a knas. It was run like a yeshiva, you know, where it's supposed to be. Bochurim didn't do whatever they wanted, you know? So the, the bochurim from Mesivta had to go. I was there for two years, and I remember twice we, we had to go. Before this said this year, mayb- maybe, maybe it was after that. Anyway, during that evening, happens to be the two years I was there, the two bochurim... They weren't bochurim. Two young elite, married, married young guys who were top talmidim from Shlomo Heiman, both of them were Lubavitch Hasidim,

29:32 Speaker 1 which also made a kitsel by me. One is Mendel Feldman. He was in Baltimore. And one is Greenberg. And Greenberg, they, he, he was a local. He was a, a Brooklyn boy. And both of them, both of them, before the war, 1939, before the war broke out, the Friediker Rebbe shipped them off to Poland, to the yeshiva-

29:51 Speaker 2 That's-

29:51 Speaker 1 And they were there till, till Friday, till when the, when the bombs came down. But since they're Cana- Americans, so they were able to... They weren't, uh, they weren't Polish, you know? Uh-

30:01 Speaker 2 So you're by this yohrtzeit event.

30:03 Speaker 1 But that, by this, see, and by this, by this thing, a guy got up, a, a Yid with a white beard that I never saw him before, and he said a, a drush, a speech.

30:13 Speaker 2 Who was it?

30:13 Speaker 1 L- who was it? His name was Kaputchnick or Kaputche, something like that. What was his job? I never saw him Torvadass, period. He was a rav somewhere in Manhattan, in the upper somewhere, East Side, West Side, I don't remember. I never got there. But he would come in Torvadass to, for her to test yohre daye, and he gave smicha. Okay, that's why I never saw him, because this doesn't happen every, you know, every week, every day. But he was a Baal Darshan. So he started a drasha, "Ein haTorah miskayemes el b'mi sh'mei misas oy aleha". So he said, "What? You're supposed to die? V'chai b'hem. V'lo sh'yomus b'hem. V'lo sh"- What, what does he mean? So he said you're supposed... And it was a very good speech. But tak a I, I later when I, I'm, I'm thinking it over, this is thing the Hasidische zachin. You have to have mesirat nefesh for Torah You should be able to give away everything. Don't even-- We're not talking doing a bullet in the head. If you do a bullet in the head, you can't learn Torah. Nah, this is not... You have to be moser nefesh. Give yourself over completely to Torah, which is good. He's talking Chassidishe language. And for that, I wanna tell you a story. We owed a lot of money to the banks, and the banks called the loan, and there's no way we're gonna come up with this money, and this was mortgage. If you don't pay, fine, we take the

31:31 Speaker 1 buildings. Torah Vodaas closes. So we put advertisements. Now, there was two newspapers, the Morgan Journal and the Forwards. Forwards were lefties. Forwards, he didn't touch. They were lefties, anti, anti-religion. But the Morgan Journal, that was good. So they put in, "Save Torah Vodaas." One day-- And he's doing all the talking. We didn't even know about this before our times. He says, "One day, Ayt comes into the office," and he says he's a Shli-- This is times of the P Freudiker Rebbe in the '40s. He says, "There is a Shliach. What's, uh, what's with the money?" So they said, "The money's coming in very, very schwach. Very, very n-n-- Uh, how much we need? Next to nothing." That's it. Anyway, one week passed, two week passed. Anyway, it's getting closer to, uh, to Yom HaDin. It can't, it can't drag this out, you know. This, they have a, a court order that it has to be paid till a certain day. You have to pay the mortgages, and if not, so it's seized by the court. If it's seized by the court, then your, your goose is cooked. One day, the Shliach comes in, this Lubavitcher Shliach, with this message, and this is something which I re-I repeated to, to everybody. This is what I heard, you know. And he comes, uh, he c- uh, one day he comes in, the Shliach, and he says, "I have a message from the, from the Freudiker Rebbe." He said, "I was in Russia under the communists, and I

33:00 Speaker 1 had a death sentence on my head, and they were ready to f- to do it with- with, without batting an eye. And I knew about that, and I knew about it all, and I had the whole time, I did not stop for one minute working to f- to spread out Yiddishkeit. I had mesiras nefesh there because government didn't allow it. Here, I'm in the United States in a city that has the biggest Jewish population, and there's a yeshiva that's gonna be closed because the Jews don't reply to the call of help. If every Jew in New York would give something, they would solve the problem," because all-- New York always had a, a gezunter, the biggest population in the whole North America. "But I can't lay, wait and see. So I put everything in tzakona, and here's the check for the whole amount."

34:03 Speaker 2 The Freudiker Rebbe-

34:03 Speaker 1 But you should know-

34:04 Speaker 2 The Freudiker Rebbe's own yeshiva and then the matter-

34:06 Speaker 1 Right, the yeshiva, had his own yeshiva-

34:07 Speaker 2 The financial situation was not good

34:08 Speaker 1 ... and I mortgaged everything, and I'm now exactly in the same stage that Torah Vodaas is. But I can't see that Torah is going to be destroyed. I can't see it." Now, that's what he did.

34:24 Speaker 2 Wow.

34:25 Speaker 1 Torah Vodaas paid. They repaid-

34:27 Speaker 2 They repaid

34:27 Speaker 1 ... Rabbi Lubavitch, uh, Lubavitch Lubavitch is around today. So he wanted to bring out was his mesiras nefesh. That's what you call real mesiras nefesh. The Freudiker Rebbe had mesiras nefesh. One thing I could say, it's not negia depratum because I'm gonna get off over there. Someone went into yechidus by our Rebbe, and it's not negia depratum, and the pratum is not negia. And the Rebbe said, uh, these words that Torah Vodaas is a Chassidishe yeshiva. That's r- that's way past my time. So way... No, not way. M- m- way quite a few years after my time. But he said Torah Vodaas is a Chassidishe yeshiva.

35:05 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

35:06 Speaker 1 The, the... I don't wanna go on pratum. I'm not here to talk about Torah Vodaas.

35:09 Speaker 2 No.

35:09 Speaker 1 But after when I finished Torah-- But it got to me, and then I went to learn in the Zal.

35:13 Speaker 2 In Montreal.

35:14 Speaker 1 In Montreal. In the Zal-

35:15 Speaker 2 So-

35:15 Speaker 1 In Montreal was mamish super. Y- you can't explain it. I know 770. Uh, your, your tes I learned in, in, in Montreal. Tov Shin Chof I learned in 770. Tov Shin Chof till, till, uh, Tov, Tov Shin Chof and then, uh, uh, after that also. It was two worlds, and that's it over there. The main thing is that the achdus that there was between all the talmidim. You know, I'll give you one example. Again, it's good to hear. People should hear about it. First of all, you should know that Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Cheikin, alav ha-shalom, came over to me. I was the youngest one in the Z- I was the youngest one in the Zal from sev-- Uh, one was say to Chassidus, 7:00 or 7:30 till 9:30. The only difference between me and everybody else is I went home to eat and sleep, and my house was right across the street from the dormitory. So don't think I was far away from, from the dormitory. And the bochum came to sleep a lot, quite a few, in my house cuz my mattresses in the house was better than the mattresses in the dormitory. And my mother's, uh, supper was also better over there, and they knew every night they come, they can eat supper there. And that's also besides the point. But you know, when Rabbi Cheikin comes to me one day, and he says to me... Everything is in Yiddish. We, we learned everything in Yiddish. Yeshivah, there was no English over there.

36:32 Speaker 1 Among us, yeah. Well, it depends among us. Me and Shmuela, we spoke English. Yankel-- Yeah, Piniekoff English. Yeah, you hit the jackpot. Anyway, so he comes over to me quietly. He said, "Meirke, I want you to know." I see... His name was Yankel. Today it's Aharon Yaakov Schwei, because he was the Rov in Crown Heights. Uh, but, but, but me, he's Yankel. I never called him these names. It's two names also. You know, and he says, "I see that Yankel has an eye on you. You should know that his book, "Bedalat Chelkei Shuchenerech u'Alen Oysgekeylem." He was a bocher. He was a bocher. Show me one guy in Lakewood who's a bocher, a b-boch-a bocher is bocher. Yeah, sure. It's gonna snow in Miami , you know, and then over there. And, and Pinny Korff, you know Pinny Korff, mamash every Thursday night, every Thursday night, we, we learn chassidis at night. Uh, the seder was from se-7:30 till 9:30, then we learned, we, uh, then... It always lev vel, at 12, 1:00, over there, uh, farbrengen started, and the bochurim, it, it-- You have no idea. When I came to learn in '77, these two bochurim... Okay, I'm not gonna say anything. It's going public. I wanted to eat in, I, I wanted to eat in yeshiva, but they forced me. I had to eat every Shabbos. One meal I ate by Pinny's house, by Pinny Korff. He was a senior mashpia in, uh, in the whole Torah.

37:52 Speaker 2 Was it-

37:53 Speaker 1 Huh?

37:53 Speaker 2 You're talking about... What are you talking about?

37:56 Speaker 1 Yeah, I, I, no, when he was married, when I went this, this already, and, uh, I was older bochur. I got married Chof Hey.

38:02 Speaker 2 When you, when you were in '77, you're saying-

38:04 Speaker 1 When I learned in '77, Chof Gimel, Chof Daled, beginning of Chof Hey. In those years, at some point, Pinny was married by Yankel too. So one meal was by Yankel, and one meal, remember, but I had to eat Shabbos by them, which I was moiche, I'd rather go eat in the dormitory, one, two, three, knock it off, and the day is over. But, you know. But they took... It was different then. The older bochurim had a, a, a, a closeness. Shmuelu, they were thinking about making a sefer on Pinny Korff, so they came to me. No, they didn't even get to me. They got to Shmuelu, so Shmuelu learned that. Pinny Korff formed my future life . He's an Englishman, you know, so everyone from the best of the match, he formed it. But it was a, a gvaldigah yeshiva. And then I learned in '77, and I learned, I learned good in '77. It was good, it was... Look, uh, uh, we're not talking about the Rebbe, we're talking about yeshiva. Nothing to do with the Rebbe, you know? So-

38:56 Speaker 2 Maybe you can tell me about the Rebbe.

38:59 Speaker 1 Talk about the Rebbe? No, so look, the only thing that I'm, that I'm gonna say publicly, e-every, everybody, if you, if you had a shailas with the Rebbe, everybody knows the Rebbe wanted it should be l- quietly, uh, uh, on the tuma with everything. I knew for a fact, I knew for a fact that the Rebbe has an eye on me. The reason was we had a mashpia, his name, uh, was, uh, Rav Menachem Zev Halevi Greenglass. This is a person that by two farbrengens, big farbrengens, you're tzirkes divver chvat. One farbrengen, the Rebbe said, "My mekubal." Mekubal is someone who learns, uh, Kabbalah. "My mekubal should say l'chaim" And a second time, the Rebbe said by... In the beginning, in a weekday farbrengen, tzirkes divver chvat, and then there was no '770. It wasn't built, you know, so they used to rent house. You tzirkes divver chvat on Purim during the weekdays, you know. So the, it was, uh, uh, your biggest time was in the summer. There wasn't such a big deal when people go out to the country. Anyway, that was in the sukkah. But in the winter, you tzirkes divver, you know, to sit for four or five hours outside, it's cold, you know, and nobody feels like sitting. And it's hard for the Rebbe too, you know. And, uh, and, and those years, the Rebbe used to farbrengen long. I remember pu- Purim taf shin hei. Purim taf shin hei, which started at eight o'clock, and oh, the Rebbe took

40:24 Speaker 1 a lot of mashke. The Rebbe was, uh , the Rebbe was, uh... The lady, said lady, he wanted to hear the, the way he was speaking. He'd, he'd-- I saw the Rebbe taking a glass. You know the glass for soda? A glass, he told them to fill it up with mashke, and he drank it all in one shot. A glass. I'm not talking about this. I'm talking about a glass. You know what that can do to you?

40:46 Speaker 2 A Benedictine?

40:47 Speaker 1 Yeah, but it w- but it was a gvaldigah farbrengen. I, I took a bus after the farbrengen, and I came 7:00 or 7:30. I came for, for Hodu, I came on time, you know. I was-- I didn't go to sleep. That day, I slept the whole day.

40:59 Speaker 2 This was the, when you were in Toras Menachem.

41:01 Speaker 1 Yeah.

41:02 Speaker 2 Yeah.

41:02 Speaker 1 I was in Toras Menachem, and I got hell for not coming to learn. You know why I got hell? Because I was by the farbrengen. They didn't say that. Boy, did I give it back. But then already I knew already it was Purim. After Purim comes Pesach. Ah, goodbye, Charlie. Your days are numbered anyway. So they were talking numbers.

41:19 Speaker 2 You answered back?

41:20 Speaker 1 I an-- Oh, did I answer back. I said, "Why don't you fire Rabbi Rivkin? He didn't say a shiur the next day. "A choytu makhter asar habib" He gives a shiur for the Beis Medrash. He was up to six series, and we-- he was in seven, seven till after. Yeah, sure, he ran to give a shiur. Sure, I'm running on all four. He didn't come. I don't have to take attendance. I know he didn't come. And I think he was a little high also, 'cause all these old ones, they all, when the Rebbe told them to say l'chaim, more than once, the Rebbe says to say l'chaim, so you say l'chaim. And then they had a little kalash, so it could be over there. I remember one... I don't remember which one. The Rebbe says, "What? You do against something bigger? You can't take something b-bigger? It must be a little kalash." So I go, "Rebbe, I'll take a whole glass." I took a whole glass. You know what happened? Give you two guesses. The first one doesn't count. You know, anyway, I, I was fed up already with Toras Menachem. It's very, I, I had already... My shailas was not like a bocher, you know?

42:13 Speaker 2 So maybe you, you, you were saying that you knew that the Rebbe had an eye on you because of-

42:18 Speaker 1 I understood. Once a-

42:19 Speaker 2 It was Greenglass

42:19 Speaker 1 ... there was once a farbrengen that this mashpia got a little high. I don't remember if she got high.

42:24 Speaker 2 Rabbi Greenglass.

42:24 Speaker 1 I was sitting next to him.

42:26 Speaker 2 Greenglass.

42:27 Speaker 1 Yeah, Greenglass. I was sitting next to him, and he made me say l'chaim, and I hated mashke. Who likes mashke anyway? So I made it said once, twice, and, uh, and then I, I... He told me say l'chaim, so I didn't say l'chaim. So she got a little angry, you know, m-me-um, meshugges, you know. And, uh, anyway, I, I, I took a little bit, but nothing. I was sitting. I was sitting. My, I was a little fedreyte that part, but I don't even remember I should be so fedreyte. In the middle of farbrengen, and they were sitting, the rebbochim. I, I think, um, if Pinny and Yankel were still there. Yeah, but the, uh, the whole Tzar was there. So I kind of, "I'm not gonna, not gonna take attendance." But I was half knocked out. I think I fell asleep next to him. So I remember he gave me a pinch, and as I got up, I was-- looked at him, I guess, a little bit, and he asked a shailah in Chassidus. At that time, I was learning chavrusa. Today is a mashpia in, in Chassidus at Shmer Gorari. We learned Chassidus for two years, oh, but we learned Chassidus, you know. And, uh, he asked me a shailah, a hard shailah in, in, in, uh, scholar. And, uh, and I was half a-half awake or half up. Anyway, I answered him. I answered him. Said, uh, the only thing that I heard, then I put my head down again. The only thing

43:41 Speaker 1 I heard he said, "Dortan, I can promise," he said, "I can swear, I swear to you that there's not one Chassidus rebbe in the whole globe who can answer with this schmender yug who just said born and, born and raised in Montreal what you just said." It was something, uh... I know what... It was episode Samech Lamed. Samech Lamed wasn't printed. There was nothing printed. It's basunder maise, I don't wanna get into it. And then he, he gave me a pinch. He was also half... He was trying. They told me later that he drank a lot of mashke. I didn't even notice. Well, I was, uh, I was knocked out most of the time. He gave me a pinch, and I looked up over there. I saw him a little bit, and he says, "Az du vust, if you would know the shайakhus that you have with the Rebbe..." And then he cut off. Something like that. I can't remember exactly what it was. Then he, then, then he cut off. I, and I don't even re-- I didn't even remember it a hundred percent 'cause I was half n-

44:31 Speaker 2 And then, and this is even before you came to seven seventy, and before-

44:33 Speaker 1 Yeah, before I came to seven seventy. And when it came to... And then the Rebbe made kanim. I don't know if you guys know about it. You had to start saying pepulim, and there was kanim. So they make pepulim in Montreal, pilpul atal medium, and they made kanim in seven seventy. I was learning in Montreal. So Chaim, before everything, Ch- he, he didn't even ask me. "You could have asked me, you know, polite, you know." So Chaim right away put my name down. I became a kano nigle. I didn't even know that I did. A day or two later, or something later, Greenglass pops up, "Oh, ich heb gemach dia kan Chassidus." I said, "Excuse me, Chaim beat you to it. I'm a k- y- I'm a kano nigle." "Ich vil dir megalle a sod." "I wanna tell you a secret. You now became a kano in both." I said, "That's not fair." I said, "It's not fair." In Lubavitch, nothing, anything was fair. The Rebbe runs the show. That's how it's gonna be, and that's how it is. End of discussion. And that was the end of it. I, I was fighting yet. You ever fight, you ever fight against a wall? We had to say pepulim, you know, and talk, uh, pilpul, not stand, get up over there and talk about the man in the moon. You had to say pepulim.

45:35 Speaker 2 So, so when you come to seven seventy-

45:38 Speaker 1 Came to seven seventy, and I was learning in seven seventy. I was a bachur like all the bachurim in Partvey. It was a good yeshiva. That's it. And I had good chavruses, Yankel Kranz with the other guy, Yankel Kranz. I learned even in Montreal, then we went to New York. I, I had good chavrusas. I was a learner, and that's it.

45:56 Speaker 2 What was the yachas with the, the bachurim and, and the Rebbe in those years?

46:01 Speaker 1 Well, the, the yachas with... The Rebbe is the Rebbe, you know. We, we, we looked at the Rebbe the, like the king. The Rebbe is the Rebbe. Of course, we saw him every day. We davened every day Mincha-Maariv with him. It, it's not enough. You know where I sat for Mincha-Maariv? I said, "I'm not sitting here, dortin," you know. So who comes over to me? One of, one of the, one of the hanhalah, you know, and says to me, "Can I know why I have to sit here?" "In Lubavitch, nisht kenen favos. In Lubavitch, there's no why." That's it. I, I was sitting where the Rebbe sat for Mincha-Maariv. He sat on, on the bench. As soon as you walk into that door, the first seat on the bench. That's where I sat. I didn't a chapsikh in the beg- in the middle. I wanted to move. Anyway, that was not megeh.

46:45 Speaker 2 So when you were a bachur, you, um, would stay, uh, uh, in seven seventy at night when the Rebbe was there by yechidus? Like how, how did, how'd that work?

46:56 Speaker 1 Yechidus came three times a week. No, we had nothing to do really with, with yechidus. Yechidus came three times a week. That was by the firer Rebbe, and the time also. Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday from eight till 11. That was by the firer Rebbe. And the yechidus start the same time, eight o'clock, except 11, forget about. And that's a yechidus, uh, he, he couldn't... Leibe... Well, so I ca- I became very close with Leibe Groner because I was very close with Greenglass, and I had a yam mit zcheider from Greenglass. So every time I came to New York when I was learning in Montreal, so as soon as he saw me, "You have merchandise?" "Yeah." "Do me a favor. Come back four o'clock. You give me a time, come back four o'clock." And I gave him merchandise, whatever I gave him, and I finish. I said, "You know, uh a rabbi, it's a two-way street. You know, this, it is, it is not a one-way street." And he gave me zcheider, but that I'm not gonna repeat.

47:56 Speaker 2 But you remember certain-

47:57 Speaker 1 Most of the things that he gave me is not... I asked him questions, which is not, is, and I'm not, none, that's nothing, it's not megeh for everybody. But I have a very close, uh, had a very close yachas with him. And the only thing is, there was, there are things that, uh-

48:13 Speaker 2 You remember certain individuals coming to yechidus, Moshe Feinstein, and, uh, Israeli, also some people from Is- Israeli politicians.

48:21 Speaker 1 I, I remember once, uh, ps-- I, I walked... We kept the doors closed because when people waiting, a lot of them were talking one with the other, and the door opens, and, and they see... Why do we have to see all these people when most of them are waiting, you know? How long they gonna wait? They'll wait till the time comes, then they go in. We don't know. So we kept the doors closed, you know. And one day, ps, I went out, and, uh, and Leibel said-- Leib, he, he come, called me, he calls me over. "Yeah, I need a favor from you." "Yeah, and what's this?" Uh, what's his name? Menachem Begin. He wasn't prime minister, but he was head, the head of Herut. He was the head of opposition. He had that for years over there. He went to Varmer Yid, he's a Brisker. He comes from Brisk, and he, he was always... He-- Some of them were really anti, you know, mit a gan, with the whole, with the whole shebang. These guys that you don't feel like talking even to them. He's just the opposite. Forget it, he was a geshmakte Yid. He was like, you know, a heimische Yid, you know. And he, he's not going in till about at least one, two in the morning. The last time he was in, he was in for over four hours. So I'm not letting him again. These poor guys have to wait over there when all them... I told him before.

49:34 Speaker 1 That's it, you know. "But what should he do for four hours?" He gave him things to read. "Go in and talk to him." I said, "Leibel, I don't speak Hebrew." He says, "Meyer, he speaks Yiddish better than you." "Okay. All right." So I went in. So I have to start a conversation with him. So I told him, so I tell him, I'll say it in English, not in Yiddish. You know, "I see you're a Lubavitcher Chassid." He says, "Wow, that's an outstanding, uh, g- coming to, um, a statement to make, especially I was born in Brisk." Which in Brisk, not only there was, I don't remember any Lubavitcher Chassidim. Brisk, there was no Chassidim. Maybe there was a shtiebel somewhere, Hasidim, maybe. And Brisk was a religious city, and Brisk was full... It was a Yiddish city way back, you know? You know, Brisk over there. But if he become a Lubavitch Hasid by going into Lubavitch Rebbe, you know, he says, "When I come to United States, I look forward for, I look f- " It was something else. Was, uh, I don't know, nothing special, but it happens every day. It happens always he's there, and then he enjoys it. "But the highlight from my whole coming, coming here, I tell you, I know I'm gonna sit for a few hours with the greatest Jew in the world. And how much time I spend, it's not enough. I can't live with that." You can take after him when there was no more yechidus.

51:00 Speaker 1 You know, he, he was at the end. They put him at the end. He would sit up to four hours.

51:03 Speaker 3 Do you also remember Arik Sharon coming?

51:06 Speaker 1 That, that, yeah, I remember him coming, but, but they made a lot of noise. They made a lot of noise. And you see, Arik Sharon was something totally different, you know? They made a lot of noise, b-but there was no tzaddik there.

51:19 Speaker 3 Wasn't there something with a map?

51:22 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, that, uh, yeah, but that, that he said. That's when-

51:25 Speaker 3 Oh, you didn't see it?

51:26 Speaker 1 No, he wouldn't... They, they... How... He wouldn't show it to us. That he wouldn't. Don't forget he was a government official, you know, Dalton. He, he, he said he, there was a map. I could tell you just one thing.

51:38 Speaker 3 He said it then? You heard it then?

51:40 Speaker 1 I, I remember... No, I don't know if it was then. Uh, we, we didn't be, we didn't make such a big simmis from him, you know? After all, what was, he was a general. Second of all, a freiem gansen. And, you know, okay, then it was mechaber. He did big things in the war. He's a soldier, everything. But, you know, uh, you know, but, uh, what should... But, uh, he, he, what did he, what... He, he, he didn't go into particulars. He said, "There, we're sitting with a map. I can tell you one thing," he says. "I was the biggest general in army." I don't know what that's called, but he was number one in the army. "I'm born in Israel. Don't teach me Eretz Yisrael. This rabbi has never been one minute in Israel, and he points out on the map, but instead of doing this way, you should have done it that way." And I wanna tell you, and there was kabbalists, and quite a few kabbalists. That would Rebbe was over there. Somebody is, is a zechrei for it over there. He didn't say you over there, over there.

52:42 Speaker 3 So that's Arik Sharon.

52:42 Speaker 1 And he said, "I never saw somebody who knows Eretz Yisrael, and he, he's never been there."

52:46 Speaker 3 Right.

52:47 Speaker 1 "So you ask me how he knows? Well, you're Lubavitch Hasidim, ask the puppy up questions. He has... I don't know. I have no what to answer." But he, with the way he spoke on the Rebbe. But it, you see, but yeah, the Israelis had a good time with him, you know? But he, he was totally a fraier, you know? He was really, really, you know... The Rebbe took someone who was really outfield over there, and the Rebbe brought him closer. Uh, but he was, he was such a kind of a guy that, you know, that he was the low of the lowest.

53:18 Speaker 3 The lowest?

53:20 Speaker 1 It was, it wasn't, you know, it, it... But not that he knew something. See, the other guys, Ben-Gurion, those guys, these are Europeans.

53:29 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

53:29 Speaker 1 They were raised religious. You should see Menachem Begin speak in Yiddish. He spoke to me in Yiddish.

53:35 Speaker 3 You can hear it on the tape when the Teshuvot V'Hanhagot when he comes, uh, when he speaks-

53:39 Speaker 1 Yeah

53:39 Speaker 3 ... in Yiddish.

53:39 Speaker 1 But they were fluent in Yiddish.

53:41 Speaker 3 Well-

53:41 Speaker 1 And they knew Yiddish guy too. There's another ma'aseh here when I was learning. Nothing... It has to do with the Moshiach finally though. Here was a learning. The Bochum decided, I know who the Bochum are. I know who decided it. They're gonna make a talucha from 70 to the East Side. I have always with my feet, I have flat feet. I'm not an But I, I, I, I used to go in talucha to Borough Park. It's far, far enough. I used to go sometimes a talucha to b- to, to what do you call it? Williamsburg. Yeah, I used to walk to 770. That, yeah. Golf in 770 to the West Side, I know the bridge because this is the Williamsburg Bridge, which I took more than once. I lived in Borough, in, in, in Williamsburg for two years. The bridge alone took me a c- over a, not a bit, close to three-quarters of an hour one way. It's a long, long bridge. Bridge is not only with the river. It starts way, right when, when near, when near the yeshiva, and it goes all the way. It's a long way. And then you have to walk for chron... It, it, it's not for me, you know? So Bochum made a talucha, and they wanted I should go because you speak good English and Yiddish. I, I, I'm not... I, I would go, but it's a Shabbat. I'm ca- I can't go. So I didn't go. They came back. Well, the ma'aseh was with Nachum

54:55 Speaker 1 Pincus. I also learned chavrusas with him. But anyway, they came back. So they went into Chabad Chov to give him over there. I know they went into Chabad Chov, and I w- I was, I was there, you know, just hanging around. Chabad Chov comes out. He has a shailah to ask. I think it's like a ya... I don't remember. I think he asked, like asked him, but I, I... He asked one of the Bochum. He asked him, "Tizman is geven by the Moreh HaAsuf in the East Side. The Moreh HaAsuf" No, the Moreh HaAsuf is in the project. He, you know, Shabbos yet. No, they didn't go.

55:31 Speaker 3 The ma'aseh.

55:32 Speaker 1 The ma'aseh. He called him the Moreh HaAsuf in the city. They actually come. Didn't know if you... They should go to his house now and give over a report what they did Shabbos. So they went ahead, and, uh, they got a car, and they drove down. I didn't go 'cause I'm not w- I wasn't part of it. And they drove, and they gave it over to him. And they said, he said to, he sa- he says to them, "You went by foot from there till here?" To... Now, you have to realize that the shuls there, they had shuls that you sit Over a thousand people. East Side used to be, that was the, that the East Side, and the shuls are still there. Yeah, but they daven in a little chapel 'cause nobody there, you know. On Shabbos they go and they daven in the big shul because it Shabbos, you know. That's over there, you know. So they went back, and they get, they turned to the Moshe, "You walk from, from, from there on Shabbos all the way here just for the few Yidden of us that are left?" I said, "Yeah." And now the Lubavitcher Rebbe can talk for you then. Anyway, he gave a whole bunch of broches, a whole bunch of broches, «Yarech yamim» and all such, and, uh, it was «yoitze». I remember something else. And when I, I-- they told me later that that's when he got the pacemaker. That's when he got... That's what guys told me.

57:04 Speaker 1 Rebbe used to come out Monday and Thursday for Krias Hatorah. And, uh, so the, the, the maskirs, you know, the Rebbe had put sick people on his «sefun» all over the world, you know. And some, there were levels, you know. They, only the Rebbe had that. So the Rebbe, before, uh, he gave over, we, and we never saw it, but he gave over a list of names with the mother's name for a place, let's say five, 10 people. And they would, by the Rebbe's Aliyah, after Kaddish, they would go to Dovid Raskin. He u- he usually led him or Yochonon Gordon. But anyway, Dovid Raskin would, uh, would call out the names. But I remembered once, m- I remember tw- could be, uh, two people. I remember when, when he finished the whole list, and I w- I was standing there. Everybody was standing there, those who were there. "Make noch a mishmer, make a mishberach." They made a mishberach, Moshe Ben. So we knew right away, Moshe, and Moshe is Moshe Feinstein. That's over there. And, uh, and then, and another name was the Klausenberger Rebbe. The Rebbe, uh, uh, also a lot about him. They made a whole hospital in, in Netanya. They built up a hospital, a «pitalya», and they came to the Rebbe. We saw him coming. I saw him coming. They saw him-

58:24 Speaker 3 Klausenberger came-

58:25 Speaker 1 Not him. Not him. The, the, his sons, and the whole, oh, it was maybe five, six people. His sons, one or two of his sons, then the people from the hospital over there with, uh, with all the blueprints and everything. That the Klausenberger Rebbe said that the Rebbe should give the okay. In all the horrors that Rebbe gives, you put it in. Don't come to me. He didn't understand these things anyway, whatever he is. And they went in. From the window, you were able to see, and I, and I, uh, caught, I also took a peek. You could see the Rebbe. You could see the something there, there were everybody's eyes is on the, on the table. You couldn't see what's on the table. You could not, you couldn't see. And they were there for a long time. They were there for a long time.

59:10 Speaker 3 You saw this through the front window on East Parkway?

59:11 Speaker 1 Through the front window, this one. They were there for a long time. Uh, somewhere between two and three hours-

59:16 Speaker 3 Hmm

59:16 Speaker 1 ... they were there. It's a lot, a lot of work. And they did, I just recently note that they made everything in the hospital according what the Rebbe said.

59:22 Speaker 3 Very interesting.

59:23 Speaker 1 Over there.

59:24 Speaker 3 You mentioned that, um, you got married in Tashrin Chaf He. That, was that correct?

59:29 Speaker 1 Yeah. Right.

59:29 Speaker 3 So first of all, you remember the, uh, obviously the «stalkas» of, um, the Rebbe's mother.

59:35 Speaker 1 Sure. I was there. I mean, I, I was in Montreal, but I was part of the levaya. Sure, I was there.

59:40 Speaker 3 Is there something you wanna share from then?

59:45 Speaker 1 Uh, firstly, be- before we share, you know, can I ask a question? Uh, you should, w- what, uh, sp- speak about the Rebbe's mother. What, what kind of person was she?

59:55 Speaker 3 Okay.

59:55 Speaker 1 What kind, I know she was the mommy for the Rebbe, okay? You have one mother, you have one father. I knew the father was, w- was, remained in Russia, you know, but the mother was in Crown Heights. She was a very, she was a v- an extremely friendly person, extremely «poshete» person, extremely smart. They used to say that the Rebbe takes after his mother more than his father. Uh, w- w- kabbalah and the secrets for the Rebbe, this is all «toirah». She was, she was sharp like a razor. And when you spoke to her, you're speaking to somebody smart. Usually a Yiddene is a Yiddene. First off, she wasn't young. In my time, she was very she wasn't that young. You know, but, uh... Yeah, I'll give you an, I'll give you a, a few examples. First of all, she was «poshet». When the days get warm, let's say, uh, May, June, it's not hot, but it, it's a nice, uh, and it, it's long days. Shabbos is over at perhaps 9:00 or whatever over there. She was sitting on a bench in East Parkway in front of Seven Seventy. Do you, oh, do you still have benches there? I don't, benches are still there?

1:01:10 Speaker 3 Still there, yeah, yeah.

1:01:11 Speaker 1 Used to be full of benches. No, but I think the trees they took off. Used to be full of trees and full of benches. And she was sitting by the bench, and people walk over, tell her, "Good Shabbos." I'll tell you something which happened with me. I, maybe it's been forgot. I was learning in Seven Seventy, and it was, I had to be in Manhattan at a, for a certain appointment. I can't remember what. And I had to be there. So I davened with an early minyan, not regular minyan. I took a subway to, to there. Anyway, I came back to Crown He- and I didn't eat anything. Uh, because I davened before. You know, you can daven six o'clock too. There was e- when w- you know, we used to «farbang» till 6:30, till six o'clock, but then we used to go down the shul, some «meshumad» «vorke» and there was a few of the older, older ones that they can't sleep at night. They would come for the first minyan at 6:30. Some people davened at s- at 7:00, but at 6:30. I remember I had to be in Manhattan. Anyway, I came back to Crown Heights, must have been about... Say it started in the Iglo radius place, 11 o'clock, and I didn't... First, there was no coffee in 770, there was no mezoinis in 770. Why not? You, when you have an answer, you let me know.

1:02:25 Speaker 3 Till the Rebbe spoke about it many years later.

1:02:27 Speaker 1 Till the Rebbe spoke about it. And I wasn't, then I wasn't big coffee drinker, but I didn't eat anything, and I was, I was doing things. First, going to Manhattan, going back to Manhattan is, it was very crazy, and a nice few hours. What am I, what am I gonna eat now? I have to wait till 2:00, 2:30 to go eat lunch, and, uh, it's, uh, breakfast is finished, and, and, and lu-lunch is not there. I go into the kitchen, they'll throw me out. I say, "You know what? Where does that grocery store..." Now it's Kahan. Kahan, uh, I knew, I know, I know Motzbach. And, uh, Yankel Lipska, uh, Shom, Berl Lipska's father, that was his store. I was hamish with him. I figure I'll go into... Money I, I always had. I'll go into Yankel Lipska, and I'll buy a Danish or two Danishes in the gurnish aller, so I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm okay. So I go in, and I take two Danishes, and there's about two, three, these sort of, with the, a Babitcher woman with the, with, with the bagelach, with, with carriages. You know, each one had a little order. And he has, uh... Don't forget, this is in the early '60s, and he has a, a, a machine, $1.22, boom. $2.22, boom. So then there's one of these f-f-first, first, uh, for the first ones, and there's a hole in front of me, and I see he's doing it, and he g- looks up to me. Mm. Drink

1:03:52 Speaker 1 them. I don't... What, what does he want? I, I couldn't figure out what he wants from me, and I see he's getting agitated. So I stop for a second, I tell him. So he stops also. The one in front of you. So I go like this. Okay. I said, "I know what he's ta- he's talking about." I said, "I don't know where Pusma is. I see I'm to her back." So I go around, and I take a... Who's in front of me? The Rebbe's mother. I take a look at the bagelach. It's a bag. It's nothing. I know what he wanted from me. Oh, where did she live? Where the yeshiva has now the dormitory. Right, right in the corner over there, there was apartment building.

1:04:30 Speaker 3 Fourth and Fourth.

1:04:30 Speaker 1 She lived there. So he didn't like the idea. He does, I, he doesn't talk to me. I can, I can, I couldn't get no instructions from him till I figured out that he's talking about her. I would... He's not gonna go point to her. She's gonna see. And she was sharp, sharper than him. So I to... So I fig- I know what he wanted. When, when, when, when she's gonna take the bag to go over there, she shouldn't have to walk. She's in the middle. It's a half a block. You might think she has to walk a half a mile, you know. I should, I should, I should carry it in for her. I said, "Okay." Anyway, so I did it. So as soon as she, she finished, she, she... I, I was waiting right behind over there. I was by the cash on the side, you know. There was some woman who were looking over, you know, if I'm gonna hack the chaim. But she, she saw that Lipska. Anyway, so as soon as she finished, she's putting the money back. I run over to her over there, and I take the bag, and I go, "Nein, nein, nein. Ich kann es tragen. I can carry it also." I said, "Boruch Hashem, I know the Rebbe's thinking carry it over there." So me, the smart, you know, the groyser kop Meyer Plotkin. I have to say something, she was deutsch. "Ich kann es nehmen. Wo ist Dr. Matthias? Why do you have to bother

1:05:38 Speaker 1 this and that?" Bother. You know. So the idiot, Meyer Plotkin, says, "I'm going that way anyway." She says, "770 is this way, and I'm going this way." What am I supposed to do? You know, this, this woman's one step ahead of me. Anyway, but it was side by side. We were already by her in the house. Anyway, she took it down over there. But I tell you something more interesting. Somebody comes over to me, don't ask me who, with a military secret. With a military secret. The first day Shavuos, so then you make, you eat, uh, l'minchah, you eat cheese, uh, cheese, uh, by Kiddush. When you make Kiddush, uh, cheesecakes and cheese, uh, and the milachigs, you may eat milachigs over there. So the Rebbe used to eat upstairs. I was always upstairs, too, but that's, that's besides the point. And, uh, she also ate upstairs, the Rebbe's mother. But anyway, so, uh, somebody told me a military secret that, um, Peretz Mochkin, Zalman Duchmin, and Benjie Shemtov are going to the Rebbe's mother's house to make Kiddush. And he says, he says that she's gonna f- I mean, she's a woman, but that... Now, Zalman Duchmin-

1:07:01 Speaker 3 Who's gonna farbrengen?

1:07:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, but who's gonna farbrengen? Yeah, who's gonna farbrengen? Give you two ca- two guesses. First was Zalman Duchmin couldn't open his mouth. Benjie Shemtov, it's better if he didn't open his mouth. Peretz Mochkin, oh, Peretz Mochkin was a champion farbrengen. He's Montreal. I wasn't worried about Pe- about, uh, about, uh, Zalman Duchmin. I wasn't worried about Benjie Shemtov. Peretz Mochkin sees me in the house, he'll shacht me. "What are you, Shmendie Yoka? What are you doing over there?" Even though I was next in terms with him, but, you know, there's certain places that when it comes to royalty, you know, bug off. So what do you do? So I told him it's a problem. And if he throws me out, he's gonna throw everybody out. It's not gonna be good. So he told me, but I have a solution. I wasn't ready in apartment. We could stand in the corner. We can do it. Anyway, so we came before, and the other two, I forgot who they were, but he can't talk. Either he couldn't speak Yiddish, it's better if they didn't speak. Anyway, I spoke to her. So I told her we heard that the Eltre Chassidim are coming. You have to realize you're talking to someone who's mamish, sharp like a razor, but very, very in royalty. We heard the Eltre Chassidim are coming for the milachig, uh- Kiddush. We came here to help you to, for, uh, to set it up here to you. She know I'm in here. And meanwhile, you'll

1:08:26 Speaker 1 be able to be by the farbrengen too. What am I supposed to do? Tell her, tell her, uh... She smiles at me. I told her we came to help you to, uh, to set it up.

1:08:37 Speaker 4 She said, "Meanwhile, you'll be at the farbrengen too."

1:08:38 Speaker 1 Mean- She gives me a smile. "Meanwhile, you'll be able to be by the farbrengen." Thank you very much for coming. I really apprec- She didn't say that, but then meanwhile, you'll be able to be by the farbrengen. So what am I supposed to do? S- say no? Say yes? So I s- she smiled, so I smiled also. Anyway, we, it wasn't too much, but the whole apartment, she had a very small apartment. I was worried about, about, uh, Perez Muchkin. But I was able to, I was able to hide in a corner. He wouldn't see me. And I didn't have to see him. I see him every day in Montreal. I have to see him. And he knew me like a book through and through, you know. And the other two couldn't open their mouths. Not that he didn't want to. They, they, they were g- hush a bit. They're good guys, you know. But Perez was a farbrenger, a professional. When he prevail-- when he farbreng, everybody listened. Green glass sat there like a, an Evan Eman or Rabbi Handle. Uh, he became my father-in-law years later. He would sit like an Evan Eman. He was a Perez Much-- I couldn't tell you a story and talk about Perez Muchkin, but he reminded me. Tech a tech nobody knows, you know. So Pere- Perez farbrenged about the... He, first of all, he, he was very smart. He knew who w- who was sitting there. Forget about Zalman Duch. He knows Zalman Duch, and they

1:09:51 Speaker 1 were bochum together in the Belz, you know. Get out of here. You know. And he, he took the Rebbe, he made him a superman. Superman. And she was sitting there and kept on repeating, "You schatz nisht op dos vu zey hot. You don't appreciate that which you have."

1:10:10 Speaker 4 Schatz nit op dos-

1:10:11 Speaker 1 You schatz nisht op, you don't... No, not, not appreciate. You don't c- c- calculate. You didn't, you don't, y- you didn't calculate enough-

1:10:22 Speaker 4 Evaluate

1:10:23 Speaker 1 ... evaluate. You didn't evaluate enough. You didn't evaluate the, this thing enough, the whole thing. And Pere- I wanna tell you, Perez made it-

1:10:32 Speaker 4 After that, after that

1:10:32 Speaker 1 ... Perez made it. You, you co- you couldn't do a better job. But I tell you, I tell you, I tell you another resembling which I saw which really, really impressed me. I used to go upstairs. You, you know, the Rebbe used to eat Yontif upstairs. The gantsa Maiser, the, I'm not gonna go all apart now. I was there. Uh, p- poor, only time I wasn't there was by the shtoren and the Sukkah. The Sukkah, you couldn't go in. Sukkas, you couldn't go in. Simchas Torah, yeah. But, uh, I was there for, uh, the last day Sukkos. I was there Shavuos. You know, but I remember once, so we used to w- So I w- we used to stand in the corner w- watching. It was mostly me and Rebel Lipska. And, uh, and, uh, and then when they were, we- we're benching, you know, so then we went into the kitchen. Rebbe shouldn't see us. Then they walked out. The men walked out, then the women walked out. As soon the men walked out-- First, the Rebbe walked out, and then the others, uh, walked out, and we used to go behind them. So once, I don't know why over there, anyway, maybe it's like a cast after something. Anyway, we had to walk down. All of a sudden, I see the women are not walking down. So I thought, well, then I see that Rebbe's mother, she's walking down. But she was going herself, but she was really an elderly woman, so, you

1:11:48 Speaker 1 know, every time she had to go step by step. So I followed, and there were another two guys. We were two, three guys. I don't re- well, I don't... It's not to care who. I was one of them. But I didn't, but I, I knew what's gonna happen now. Take it easy. She's gonna go downstairs, and she's gonna knock on the Rebbe's door.

1:12:08 Speaker 4 But the Rebbe wasn't-

1:12:09 Speaker 1 And I don't wanna sit-

1:12:10 Speaker 4 The Rebbe wasn't by the, by the seder?

1:12:12 Speaker 1 Sure he was, but first the men went.

1:12:14 Speaker 4 Ah, okay.

1:12:14 Speaker 1 The Rebbe was right in his room. After the men went, then the women went. She went there first. And the Chamedina stood there. She was by her in the house. What's her name? Chana went upstairs. She was gonna go downstairs. So I was standing, but I didn't want Rebbe to see me. So it was me. Behind me was three bochum, two bochum. I di- I don't remember who. But I remember standing there. So she knocks on the door, and Rebbe doesn't answer. She knocked a few times, Rebbe doesn't answer. The Rebbe didn't have a knob. In his door, there's not a knob. I don't know if you noticed it. It's these things that you lift up and down. You know what I'm talking about? Go to, when you go to 770, you'll see. It's, it's not a knob. A knob, you turn the knob, and the door opens up, right? Then they have a thing, like a, like a... I don't know how to say it in English. You lift it up, and it... You have to know how to lift it up, and it can open the door. But if you don't know it, you lift it up and down, it's gonna make a lot of noise, but you're not gonna open the door. That's what she did.

1:13:16 Speaker 4 I think today there's a knob.

1:13:17 Speaker 1 It's not a knob.

1:13:18 Speaker 4 No?

1:13:18 Speaker 1 The Rebbe doesn't have a knob in his door. You go next time to 770, you'll see there's not a knob on his door. They did that, they didn't change. Anyway, she was making a lot of noise. Talk making a lot of noise. Lot of noise. Anyway, the Rebbe opens the door. So she says to Rebbe, "Please excuse me for the noise that I made." You should hear him laugh. His mother is excusing the son. "Excuse me when I, when I bothered you." Don't... He, he, Rebbe laugh. We heard it loud, he laughed. He left the door open, put a... He walked in the street always with a coat.

1:13:50 Speaker 4 The Rebbe?

1:13:51 Speaker 1 Always with a coat, even in the summertime. Summer, a light coat. Uh, uh, uh-

1:13:55 Speaker 4 On Shabbos?

1:13:56 Speaker 1 Uh, Shabbos. Shabbos, Shabbos always with a coat.

1:13:58 Speaker 4 Because, um-

1:13:59 Speaker 1 Shabbos always with a coat

1:14:00 Speaker 4 ... it was a Hakhpadah about the-

1:14:01 Speaker 1 And he walked, he w- and he wa- he walked-

1:14:02 Speaker 4 Supposed to wear a coat on top of the silk. It's a-

1:14:05 Speaker 1 Uh, that I don't know. That I don't, that I don't. But he always... Sometimes in the, they wo- he wore a Shabbos. You know, in New York in July, you know, it's nice, and you get 90, uh, the humidity and 90 degrees. You know, the last thing you need is a stupid coat. But always he, he... But a light coat. It was a very, very light coat. But remember how she told him, how she told him. She was a very smart woman, extremely smart. It was a mechaye to talk to her.

1:14:30 Speaker 4 A Month Chidim is brought to you by Chsidushe Derher. We live in a chaotic world, a world where for us Chidim, eseseinu lo ra'inu, we do not have the ability to hear and see the Rebbe on a daily basis. Yet we know that the Rebbe is very much with us, and Chsidus Chabad is alive and thriving more than ever before. One needs to only tap into it. Chsidushe Derher provides you and your family with the tools necessary to tap into all of this, whether it's the monthly magazine, the way it all began, whether it's Derher books, Derher online content, and so much more. Men, women, and children throughout the world benefit and use these tools on a daily basis. Whether it's children enjoying the children's magazine that comes along with the regular Der Her or enjoying the children's podcast, whether it's bachurim in yeshivas receiving the Der Her, whether it's girls in high schools enjoying Der Her Club in their local high school. People all over the world and from all walks of life enjoy and utilize these tools and take advantage of it. If you're not already subscribed to the Der Her monthly magazine, do so today at derher.org. That's D-E-R-H-E-R.org. Der Her is a dynamic organization which is committed to continue providing these tools, grow on a constant basis, and do all that we can to help this effort. Baruch Hashem, it takes a lot of resources and finances to make this all happen. You can be part of Der Her through your

1:16:24 Speaker 4 financial support as well through visiting our website, derher.org, or through contacting us to setting up a meeting. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the podcast. So you got married in taf shoh chaf hei, Shavuos time.

1:16:38 Speaker 5 Yeah, right after Shavuos.

1:16:38 Speaker 4 Was there something from the Rebbe regarding your shidduch?

1:16:48 Speaker 5 I decided to do it. This, this is very personal things.

1:16:52 Speaker 4 So, menegeh your shidduch, was there anything from the Rebbe?

1:16:54 Speaker 5 My shidduch. When it came to my shidduch, so they started bugging, started marking. I was a prize catch, and I wasn't ready yet. So my w- my mother, my, my mother's a gantse maish, she, she had a sh-- uh, she, not my father, my... 'Cause they talked her into coming with Beis Rivkah. She did a whole bunch of work for Beis Rivkah, and she had to report to Rebbe. She went to yechidus, and she went into yechidus, comes the spook, a- and I, I write out the settel for her in Yiddish. In Yiddish, not in Hebrew, in Yiddish, and she signs it. And when I-- exactly when I... And, uh, and she read it. She, she read it, but it was better if I write it, you know? And I wrote it very clear over there, and, uh, she's gonna go in, and, uh... So tell when yechidus tak a dat it, it shook me up a little bit. And we're waiting to go into yechidus, and the spook, this Greenberg, he was punked in New York, and he sees me waiting, calls me over. "Your mother's going to yechidus?" I said, "Yeah." "You go in, too." I said, "No way. I have nothing to..." Okay, I went to the mikveh that day. "I have nothing to do with it. The whole settel had to do with Beis Rivkah." Or I don't know what it had to do. I said, "I'm not going in." Divily, the way it happens to be, you have to listen

1:18:27 Speaker 5 to me. I was married already, and I don't have to listen to you.

1:18:32 Speaker 4 You were married already?

1:18:34 Speaker 5 Uh, I was married. Uh, no, maybe not. Maybe not. Probably not. I was in meshpir. Okay, probably not. Yeah, she was talked, uh, yeah, right. I wasn't married. We talked, I went in. But she was m- I went in after y-- yeah, I, I went also after she went. Yeah, this was before, before, before I got married. Not so much before, a year or something. Anyway, anyway, bekitz I went in. I'm gonna start with a spook. One of the things she wrote in, that the city is taking away a building from Beis Rivkah. And she don't, no, she didn't wanna write it in. And she went in. I don't remember the protim, and, uh, and she l- she was va- she was vague about Beis Rivkah 'cause she was afraid. She w- she was speaking upsere things. And it was-- anyway, the Rebbe started talking about Beis Rivkah. So my m- my mother doesn't know no chochmas, you know. When, when your father wants to know, y- you tell him. So she says that Beis Rivkah is going through a, a difficult time now. "I'd rather not speak about Beis Rivkah now." And Rebbe says, "Oh, ich vil davke yetz vissen. I want davke to know now." And she couldn't see me. And I, I was, I, I, I was, I was hidden. I was, but I was able to see. I, I saw everything, but he wasn't able to see me.

1:20:04 Speaker 4 You weren't in the room?

1:20:05 Speaker 5 I was in the room. I, uh, the spook doesn't let me go in. I have to go in, so I'll go in, but I don't wanna show my face yet 'cause the spook told me, "So, Greenberg, so I'll go in." I stood in the back-

1:20:13 Speaker 4 And that's what you guys called him, the spook?

1:20:15 Speaker 5 Huh?

1:20:15 Speaker 4 The spook? That's what he was called?

1:20:18 Speaker 5 That's what I called him.

1:20:19 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:20:19 Speaker 5 The Rebbe called him a Mekubal. A Mekubal in English is a spook.

1:20:22 Speaker 4 Spook.

1:20:23 Speaker 5 So he doesn't speak English. It's not my fault. I speak English. We, among ourselves, so it about nothing. Piniekov didn't say spook, but me, me and Meesh Mullov, we would say spook. What should I say, Mekubal? I could say Mekubal, you know? So my mother told him. So Rebbe heard about it. You see his face when he put his eyes down, and he says quietly, uh, uh... Look, I saw it. I was there. He says, "You wanna hide everything from me? What do you ga- what do you gain by hiding it from me? The end is I'm gonna find out anyway, so you could tell me." Then he lifts up-- he, he, his eyes were down, talking like to himself. He lifted up his eyes, I saw them. "But you're gonna see. Vesifke will blossom, and we'll see a lot of nachas in Vesifke." And she came-- That's what happened to her. She came back, and she gave what... She didn't say what happened before, but she-- I, I remember when it was. I, I was there. I don't remember the Mm. Okay. So is there anything, um- About my shidduchim? Yeah. I'll tell you about my shidduch. They were noshing, and I wasn't into getting married. I was learning good. So this-- And my mother was noshing me. So I said: "You know what? You're noshing me. Yeah, you have a direct line with the Rebbe. Go unto Rebbe, speak to Rebbe. Whatever Rebbe says, goes." That she knew. She says, "You know, I'm

1:22:04 Speaker 5 gonna do it." So she went in. I, I didn't go in with her. Just I didn't wanna go in because it has to do with me, and, and I didn't wanna go in. Rebbe told her, "He's ...take a sitting and learning in his matsleyach. So why do you have to, why do you have to bug it up? You could think about it, but in a general way, not, not from today to tomorrow." Something like that. But then the, the But- But in time, so I was learning, and she c- she accepted it. No, and Rebbe was asking for a shidduch, and Leibel Groner says to me, "Nobody does it. You do it." I said, "Yeah, but you see, he answers me." "Yeah, but he doesn't answer the other one." "But he answers me, so what should I do? Take a census from everybody he answers me?" What do you mean no one does it? But I did. What'd you do? I have to pick my, the collar. Oh, so you gave him three atsays to the Rebbe and asked Rebbe the truth. I said, "Rebbe, you pick it." Usually, you don't give three atsays. You ask, "Should I interest myself?" If the Rebbe says not to, uh, 'cause I have other ones also. If the Rebbe doesn't hold, he didn't hold from it, look somewhere, another one. So look for another one. Or you can write in, uh, three, "I have three atsays. This is one of them." Rebbe says, "Yeah?" "Yeah." Rebbe says he

1:23:28 Speaker 5 wants to see the other ones or take another. Whatever you do, you follow orders. Here I said, "Rebbe, here's written." Leibel said-- He was berserk, you know. Thought, but then he starts laughing, you know, and may a plot can do business with him. "Rebbe, I have to pick." "You pick. Which one do you want?" And he did. I saw the answer. We saw the tzetlech. I, I got tzetlech. Ev- Some guys have to wait a day or two, but me, an hour or two. He took a basaraf hand and he circled around it. And that was it. That was it. That was that. Mm-hmm. As Leibel Groner would say, "It happened once, and the thing gonna happen again." I said, "How do you know?" "Ah, come on." So you got married in Montreal? Got married in Montreal. And, oh, got married in Montreal. 1941. 1939, September the 1st, 1939, Hitler bombed Warsaw. That started World War II. The Firk Rebbe, he was also in Warsaw. By that time, he was in Otwock. Otwock was a suburb of Warsaw. Mm-hmm. And the bombs were in the suburbs, too. Later, so they were-- Those, uh, there was two, three hundred bochurim in, in, in the zal, in Lova- in Tomchei Temimim in, in Poland. 30, 40 survived. The rest, the rest remained. With all the schmalz, all the schmalz of the Kindre Rebbe's secretaries and everybody, they all remained there. 40 bochurim, th- some 30, 40 made it. First they had to go, first there were bombs

1:25:18 Speaker 5 falling. Then you had to get to, to go smuggle across the border out of Poland into Lithuania, come to Vilna. Anyway, then they were in Vilna. He didn't come yet. Oh, he came later. He came to Vilna, and he, he, he, he killed the, he, he destroyed Vilna, but then he didn't come yet. Canada gave a visa for up to 40, 50 yeshiva students. Gave a visa. Not in the-- Poland was forgettable, and he was in Poland, you know. And Lubavitch got nine. Firk Rebbe was in New York. The Firk Rebbe picked out nine names. And he came to Montreal. They made a yeshiva. Then there were some bochurim from V- from, uh, from the, no, the Darfur, Yemi, from, uh- Chachmei Lublin. Lublin. The Lublini, Lublini yeshiva. Most of the bochurim that, be it more than all that, was from Mir. Mir, the Mir, like almost the whole yeshiva. There was up to over 100 yeshiva bochurim that got saved, that got together. They came to Montreal. They all together, all together, there was a certain amount of yeshiva. All together it was about 50. Yeshiva bochurim were Rebbe's, uh, I don't know, 20 or 25 all together. Each one made their own thing. The Lubavitch were their own. Lublin, there was one of the bochurim. His name was Pinchas Hirschbrun. Pinchas Hirschbrun, this is bekitze, and this has been certified 125 times, not from Lubavitch. The Mm-hmm. Matzias is like that. He was the biggest boki in the whole world. He had a

1:26:59 Speaker 5 photographic mind. He was a bochur. He had a photographic mind. When he saw something, uh, saw something, give him a book Which he can read, okay, not English. Let's say you can speak English. You give him a b- uh, there's a, a novel, a book, the page. Give him a page to read. He'll read the page. He'll put down the book and say the whole page by heart. Just a page in the middle of a novel that you don't know before, you don't know later, you don't know, know you don't know. But it doesn't matter who... He saw something, it remained by him. Greenblatt told me there's a letter from this... That's what he told me, and I accepted it. He told me outspoken. He told me that there's a letter from the Satmar Rebbe, "Yochid bedereinu be inyan hapkiyas." It's true. There was nobody like him. There was nobody like him. From the time that he came to Montreal, 1941 to 1965, what, 24 years, he did not step into Lubavitch once. Got married. No, uh, became a choson. Okay? Became choson and everything. There was-

1:28:10 Speaker 4 You became a choson.

1:28:11 Speaker 5 I became a choson.

1:28:12 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:28:13 Speaker 5 Yeah. No, w-what, what am I gonna do after? I, I mean, after the wedding. No, the Rebbe wanted to shulhan in kollel. The Rebbe made a kollel in, um, in, in New York. So I know the Rebbe, the kollel. I, I told this to Hendel too. So "Vus hot tachtin?" First let me see what the Rebbe says. Well, people, "Eh, Hendel was maskin." And my wife went to seminary. Uh, not she didn't want, Hendel didn't want 'cause it cost money. The Rebbe wanted that because she should go to se- besides finishing high school, Bais Yaakov. She, they, besides all that, Bais Yaakov didn't have a high school, she finished it in New York by Bais Yaakov. It's a gantz meise. The Rebbe pushed her she should go to seminary too. The Rebbe pushed. So Hendel went along with it, even though he wasn't so ay, ay, ay 'cause it cost him good money, and he didn't have the money. No, the Rebbe hasn't got, get f- done. It was done talking. No, the Rebbe wanted to shulhan a kollel, so I wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe knows that she went to, to, to, to seminary. The Rebbe, it's, it's his, it's his, it's his joy. He did it, not me. So I wrote to the Rebbe, "The kollel's in New York. The Rebbe will shulhan in the kollel. My, my wife has a, from the seminary. She can be, she can teach in New York." In New York, you could te- Bais Yaakov,

1:29:29 Speaker 5 you could teach, you could teach the whole city where, what there is there, 65. That's it. On the word kollel New York, he go... He... I, I saw the answer. You were able to see it. Then you have to leave it by the mosquitos. He goes ahead, and he crosses out New York, puts that thing New York, and he writes down Montreal. By kollel Montreal, he crosses out, crosses out Montreal, crosses out New York, writes down Montreal, and then underneath, I don't remember, HaRav Hershprung. I come back... No. No, no, no. I come back. I come back. No. No, I mean, I mean, I had time to forget it, you know. It's quite a few years. I wrote down, "I'm gonna learn in New York?" Because the, the Rebbe wants, uh, uh, to, um, uh, to learn in the kollel.

1:30:40 Speaker 4 Daaten.

1:30:40 Speaker 5 So I wrote, "Kollel in New York." Rebbe crosses out New York and writes Montreal. I go over to Hendel, and I, I tell him, "Montreal." Rebbe says, "What Montreal?" I said, "You're asking me? I'm telling you what he said." He said, "What should I do?" I said, "Write into the Rebbe, what does the Rebbe mean with Montreal? Montreal doesn't have a..." Montreal has no kollel altogether, Montreal, besides Lubavitch. Where's the kollel Montreal? Lubavitch has a kollel in New York. That is also out. I didn't, we didn't go checking everybody. Is that in New York? So Rebbe, he wrote in New York. He answers, "Two bochurim are getting married in one week with me and another one, a Chemei, a Chemei Kagan." Yeah, we got married in Montreal. We, we were, we got, we were, we, we were choson the same time, and we were chavrusa. We learned together also. Anyway, two, two, two youngelachte getting married in Montreal in one week. Open up a kollel. And the rosh hakollel, who's gonna run the rosh hakollel? HaRav Pinchas Hershprung. Okay? He went to Rav Pinchas Hershprung. He says, "Gesunte heit, Pit..." Uh, he knew our family good. He knew who the, uh, Kagan he didn't know, but he knew her family also good. Montrealer. He knew the Seider. Everybody knew the Seider. Also, everybody knew him. So we're learning. So we're learning. Goodness. Anyway, so, so we were learning. We learned the whole year.

1:32:15 Speaker 4 You learned where? Like, you had-

1:32:16 Speaker 5 In, in a yeshiva. Montreal yeshiva.

1:32:18 Speaker 4 In a yeshiva.

1:32:18 Speaker 5 We're In yeshiva.

1:32:20 Speaker 4 In, in Lubavitch yeshiva?

1:32:21 Speaker 5 Lubavitch yeshiva.

1:32:22 Speaker 4 So Hershprung came to teach you guys?

1:32:23 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:32:24 Speaker 4 Because the Rebbe said.

1:32:25 Speaker 5 Because the Rebbe said.

1:32:26 Speaker 4 That's it.

1:32:27 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:32:27 Speaker 4 He had no connection to the Rebbe before.

1:32:28 Speaker 5 No connection. He never went to the Rebbe.

1:32:31 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:32:33 Speaker 5 Okay? And, uh, my, our family had a close connection. My parents had a clo- a close connection with him. He knew me. It's not because we had one family. But Lubavitch, it-- I-- So then he never walked into it. I, I just tell you, I, I tell you a heck of a dvara megiym. I once... It came Yitzhak Mencl. I asked him, "In Lublinis geveyn a..." Now, in getting to Lublini yeshiva, you had to know, I think, 2,000 blat Gemara or modim Gemara baal peh. They would just shoot the Gemara. We're talking thousands. They were-- And who's the bochurim? Who's gonna test him? Pinchas Hershprung. He was also bochur. He knew everything baal peh. He was a, he was a person not normal. Now don't ask me if he really understood everything that he would... That's a different story. But Bal Pat, he saw it, doesn't matter what. If he was able to read it, he saw it, and he didn't forget it. Crazy, huh? He was cracker nuts. So I once asked him, i-it's, if in Lublin... You know what? Leave over Hershman for a minute. I have something better. And this is our novelty from the Lubavitch. Forget, you guys should take a work on this. Give me a mefas, every word I said, which I'm gonna say now. I think the time has come that Lubavitch has to begin to reali- Okay, they don't know, doesn't change the matiyes. What I'm saying now, I'll back up 100%, it's exactly what I heard

1:34:15 Speaker 5 from him. I'll soon go into protim, but let me tell you something else. Who was the closest person the 10 years that the Frierdiker Rebbe was in, in, in Crown Heights, in 77 Eastern Parkway from 1940 to 1950, who was the closest person to him? Whatever name you're gonna... And give me a name.

1:34:43 Speaker 4 I don't know.

1:34:44 Speaker 5 Who?

1:34:44 Speaker 4 I don't know.

1:34:45 Speaker 5 Oh, that's a good answer. There was twi-- there was once a year, twice a year, that the Frierdiker Rebbe didn't want on the second floor where he lived, n- only family, nobody else without exception. On Hanukkah, when he lit the Hanukkah licht, only family. That's why there was never a picture of the Rebbe, Frierdiker Rebbe with Hanukkah. There was never a picture. You ain't gonna hear, "Yeah, Rav Potkin, there's a picture from the Frierdiker Rebbe sitting by the Hanukkah licht." That picture was taken on Zois Hanukkah, the last night of Hanukkah, Tov Shen Yud, which is already Teves, which is one month before Shvat, Tov Shen Yud. And a member of the Frierdiker Rebbe's family told, uh, the name I'm not gonna give you, told a young man, "You stand by the door." The door was not locked. It was open, but the door was closed. "You stand by the door with a camera" in 1950, not like today. No flash. "You take one picture. One, two, three, and don't start catching schmatchit, there's no time." 'Cause if the, the only... You, you can only do this when there's nobody from the family, when it's completely clear, 'cause there were other people also there, right? There was upstairs, downstairs. They had a wife, he had a grands- a grandson. Hanukkah with licht, mit ganz samayach. Should be nobody there. The door's gonna be open. When I open the door, versteht sich was the, the Ramash. The Rebbe opened the door. He said, "You take the

1:36:36 Speaker 5 picture, you do it, and get out. Don't scar-- 'cause if somebody sees you, the goose is cooked." And they were the, they were there, but there was nobody there then. They went into a different room. I swear. He was keeping watch, the, the Ramash. He came in. He took a picture.

1:36:51 Speaker 4 How do you know this?

1:36:52 Speaker 5 What?

1:36:53 Speaker 4 How do you know this?

1:36:54 Speaker 5 He took a picture, and he took a picture, and, uh, and he gave the, the film to, to, to, to, to, to, to the Ramash, a-and that's the end of the story. But there was a n- second time that nobody was allowed to be-

1:37:12 Speaker 4 Now where, where'd you hear this from?

1:37:13 Speaker 5 It's Mishnegaya. There's a n- second time wh-when nobody was allowed to be, and then the door was locked. And that's Erev Yom Kippur when a father blesses the kids before, before Kol Nidre. The door was locked, and the whole family was there. The Rebbe, his wife, the Roshag, his wife, and his grandson, the Rebbe benched him. Nobody was allowed. The door was locked. And then one of them, the family, opened the door, opened the lock, and one person walked in. One person walked in. He walked into the Frierdiker Rebbe's room. The Frierdiker Rebbe gave the berakhah. He was sitting with a shtreimel, with everything, before Yom K-- before Kol Nidre. Right before them, that's when he benched. Sitting in his Yehudit's room, and this year came in, the Rebbe benched him, and he walked out. The kid's name was Shmuel Zalmanov. Shmuel Zalmanov was the closest person to the Frierdiker Rebbe.

1:38:20 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:38:22 Speaker 5 Extremely close. I know the records he gave up. He, he was the chason in town for the Yomimi, made the records, schmeckers from all the Sachen. Okay. When it came Pesach by the Seder, by the Frierdiker Rebbe Seder, was only the whole family. Wherever it was.

1:38:36 Speaker 4 Around the table.

1:38:38 Speaker 5 And he was also. Him, he's there with his fa-- with his family was also there. And Yosl Zalmanov, who became, and it-- when Reb COVID took him away, dorten-

1:38:47 Speaker 4 His son.

1:38:49 Speaker 5 His son, dorten, they, they, they were by the Seder. Which Shmuel Zalmanov had stories from f- nobody had. When I came to New York, I had to go eat by Shmuel Zalmanov, and you know where he lived? He lived on, you took Brooklyn. Instead of going towards Lefferts, you went towards Williamsburg, and all the way, 20 minutes over there. A good, good walk. And if you came for Yuntes Kissev in, uh, in, uh, in December or your Shvat in, in January, February, where it's nice like Miami. It's mechayel, you don't know, but then you have to walk there, and you walk back Friday night to eat. I could eat in the dormitory, 676 Eastern Parkway, right across the only toilet. That's where the chicken... When I have to shchapsikh over there for a piece of chicken. He says, "Meyer, my father is loaded. Loaded, and he doesn't say a word." I said, "What do you want me to do? I should pull out his teeth? You open his mouth." And I did. And the same thing happened by Zalman Gerari, which Meyer says, "Meyer." Zalman Gerari, I take over, I ate a lot, because he was my mechut-- he was my, uh, uh, uh, mechabros for about two, three years, you know. And I opened up Zalman Gerari, and I opened up Shmuel Zalmanov. And they had choireh.

1:40:08 Speaker 4 So what did you hear from them?

1:40:25 Speaker 5 These, these things are not, are not written anywhere. When Rebbe got a heart-- first of all, m-m-my family, I started with three girls. The fourth one was a boy. He's now, he runs a Beis Chaim Moshue over here in, uh, Carroll Street. But the first three were girls, and Meir Plotkin was, uh, was always going to New York, and my wife would say, "You're going to New York, you don't go empty-handed." Okay, but to take three girls was a shtikel problem. They were girls. Anyway, nisht, get to the point. When it came that the Rebbe got a heart attack, so everybody was in the front of Seven seventy. Half of Seven seventy was full. They made a little platform should be higher. There the Rebbe was standing, was leading the hakafos, and then he danced on the floor. But he led, he led the hakafos. And I-- me, it's Meir Gurary with another yungerman. He's in Rebbech. He's not around. But also Montreal, uh, Sholom Leib Eisenbach. We had girls. We stood at the wall, in the other wall, in the back, but we saw everything. And then it came, the Rebbe got a heart attack, and the kids were small. My kids were very small then, especially the youngest one. And, uh, so anyway, they n- they said, "Hey, you have to have air." You know, in the back, there's a lot of windows, and they broke all the windows. They just in a h- in 30 seconds, all the windows were done. My

1:41:56 Speaker 5 kids were watching. They were terrified. And then everybody had to go out of the, out of, out of Seven seventy. And it was small kids, especially my youngest one. Anyway, and it was cold. So everybody was standing on East, the Parkway in Kingston crying. Then, uh, about the kids, the, the kids, uh, they also, they got scared, you know? And then my youngest one f-l-forgot her coat inside, and she's shivering. I said, "Where'd you put it?" She told me where. I was afraid I'm gonna lose her. Where the gants men. I said, "But stay here. Don't move. If, if someone tells you to move, you said, 'No, my tatty said I sh-- move. Don't move.'" So I ran into Seven seventy. I found a coat, and I see that the Rebbe is going with the Shach for the seventh hakafah. There was maybe, maybe 10 people together. Let's say there was 10, maybe. I won't guarantee it. There was nobody there. Very few people. Leibel met this one and that and, and over there. Everybody was out. And so the, I, I, so, so I hid myself, you know? So they put the, you know, this is the dance, you know, you put the, you know, the... They, they, they started singing the hakafah again, and I saw they three times they circle, then the, then Sh- Shach pulled away. Rebbe goes like this. The Shach went like this. I'm tired. They don't wanna look him in the face. Everybody went like this. The doctor

1:43:30 Speaker 5 asked the Rebbe... The Rebbe was on a little platform, like one step. Is it possible that the Rebbe should be able to dance on the platform? He shouldn't have to walk down one step or two steps on the, on the floor. 'Cause he was going through, and it wasn't a light heart attack. It was a moderate heart attack. It was a heart attack that you could die from it. It was not a light one. They make it a light, yeah, sure, over there. So he says, "No, a hakafos has to be on part of the shul, not, not on a platform." And he walked down. He wasn't allowed to walk one step. You have nothing to do tomorrow. You go to Seven seventy, and you count all those steps from downstairs to the first floor. He wasn't allowed to go one step. It's about 30 steps. And walking out, and Leibel says to the Rebbe, "There's a, there's a, there's an elevator." We're dropping everything, but you have to come to the hospital. He says, "It's impossible. I can't." They said, "Well, here we can do it." "It's just, it's impossible for us." "Then do it." This is something that, that we chase, we have to, we had to live through all these things, you know. I want to tell you something. 'Cause Zalman Geravi. Oh. This is something if somebody has the rechilus to be mefarsemet, it would be a gevaldik zach. Th-this I also saw. All the maskilim. Rebbe was in the room.

1:46:43 Speaker 5 There were doctors going in and out. I don't know. I saw out... When I took, go to, to sh-- May, anyway, I saw them maybe when I had to get the coat. When I, I saw upstairs all the, no, all the maskilim were there, and Zalman Geravi. I heard later, I no-no, I don't know who I heard it from. It's not Megear. Maybe Leibel. Yeah, I think Leibel told him. I don't know. Anyway, I heard the middle rebbetzin came. She walked in. She wasn't there long. Five minutes, 10 minutes. She wasn't there long, and then she went upstairs, and she was there till Rosh Chodesh Kislev when the Rebbe went home. She never went home after that. During the day, she would go into him. She just had to walk down the stairs. You know, nobody even saw. She wasn't, she wasn't there long. Five minutes, 10 minutes. She wasn't there long. She came out, and she saw the maskilim, and she looks around, and she sees the, the gang. Then she sees Zalman Geravi. She puts her eyes on Zalman Geravi. Zalman Geravi takes, uh, starting with Chadowkov and throws them out of the room. Push it, pushes them out. "Geh taroys!" That must be the Rebbe secretaries, you know, Rabbonim. He threw them out, but she's standing there. They're not gonna start with her. And he goes and he closes the door, and he's not there long. Few minutes. And she goes upstairs to the second floor, and they come back, and they

1:48:24 Speaker 5 see Zalman Geravi is cracked out completely. "What happened?" He's not talking. Zalman Geravi doesn't get emotional, and here he was oys mensh. And Zalman Geravi is not talking. They were asking him. The Badimer was calling up every week or something. Yudel, Leibel, Binyomin. I was good. I, I was excellent with all of them, and Baruch Hashem, it's ge-ge-geylt a veg. "What's with Zalman Geravi?" He's not talking. And then they all jumped up on me. "What are you asking for? You're mechutanim with him." I was a mechutan because his, his, I made a chid- I made a, a, a... He's my bro- His son is my brother-in-law. I made the shidduch. He, he has a son, Nossan, in, in Buffalo. I made the shidduch. He called me up, "How much you want me, how do, how much do you want the shadchanus geld?" So there's a Jewish saying, there's a Jewish saying, I can't even put it in English. You know, like, uh, rotten salami or something. Anyway, I don't want money. I didn't do it for money. He's my mo- I did it for my, my sister-in-law, Henel's daughter. You know. Anyway, they all ganged up on me. They all ganged up on me. I kept on calling, "Well, how the Rebbe's doing?" I would think that would they, they answered me. And then I would ask him, "Zalman Geravi?" "Nothing. Zalman Geravi, nothing. It's your baby." No, I saw them. I saw- You would ask maskitas about Zalman Geravi. I want to hear what

1:49:58 Speaker 5 happened. What, what Rebbe said when I, what, what made him nu- Zalman Geravi doesn't get nuts. Mm-hmm. It just made him nuts. What- You knew this that night that, that this happened? It happened the night when there were- But you knew about it right, right away. Oh, I, no, I found about it later. Oh, okay. I found about it later. I was, I was in the street. So the other mas- I, nobody knew. I, I found about it- So the other maski- How I found about it, a base attack in this. I could be, could be they told me. So the other maskitas is asking you, "What are you asking about Zalman?" No, they haven't. You find out yourself. I gave up talking. Then, go on the shabbes, and they attack, wanted to know. The attack wanted to know 'cause she said something that... Anyway, I had to be-- The Rebbe was getting better. Rebbe was getting better, and Monday and Thursday, he was coming out to, uh, Kehillat Yisroel, and he got on a Lear. He would come out right by Kehillat Yisroel, and when he, after kehillat, particularly, he went back to his room. Okay. So, they made like this. The Bochurim had to write. The whole thing, you're not allowed to open the window because we're afraid he's gonna get a cold, a draft, the wind could come in. Uh, there could be a, a certain amount of... Anyway, they made a takonam. A yungerman who comes from out of town on

1:51:11 Speaker 5 Monday and Thursday can go into the Rebbe. To be, to go into, uh, Kehillat Yisroel. There was a nudnik in, in New York who, who wanted to meet with me. It's not Megear Watt. And I didn't want to have anything to do with him. Anyway, he sent me a ticket to go by plane, and I didn't need his ticket, and I told him I'm not going by plane anyway. And then, and he wanted, he had, he had a certain agenda that he wanted to do, and he... Anyway, and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. Anyway, it came to a turn that I have to, uh, we, how do I get prote for this guy? Then I figure, "No, I, I will get prote. I'm gonna sit with him for half an hour, and it's, nothing's gonna happen." I told him right away. Then I figure, "Hold on a second. True, true, true, true. I can be there Monday morning-" Or Thursday morning, I'm a younger man from Montreal who came in for the day, which is true, and I can be by 10:00 AM. But I have to be there 10 o'clock in the morning. Problem is, to be there 10 o'clock in the morning, when you take a plane in the morning, which I was a-- I'm a big traveler. I traveled a lot in my life. And, uh, the plane is delayed, traffic, schmaffic, hin and a her, and they have to land in New York, which always, always

1:52:33 Speaker 5 the b- the airports are empty. And they do, uh, it, it can get ｡I have so much experience with it. Then I have to get from, from LaGuardia to 770 in the morning, rush hour, ｡ I think I can fly in the night before. Come in 10 o'clock at night, nine o'clock at night, sleep over. Who says I have to go in the morning, wake up at the first flight, 6:30, and say to them that I'll be, get there for 10, which I'm not guaranteed with any nisht from the airline, nisht from traffic, nisht from this and that. What am I needed for? I'll go over and I'll sleep over, and that's what I did. And I landed in New York and nothing what to do. And I got a little sam ogarari. And I know the sam ogarari was very... They gave him all the information by the Rebbe how it's doing, 'cause this, I got already from the Shamayer. He like, uh, he got all the information, which eventually we also got more or less. So I call up, uh, sam ogarari. I said, "What..." First of all, I have nothing what to do. And it's, I, and I landed. It wasn't late. I landed, let's say nine o'clock. I was getting, let's say I was nine o'clock, I was in Crown Heights. I call him up and he, on, on hi- on his phone, I had his number. He picks it up, and he, he doesn't speak a word of English, you

1:53:52 Speaker 5 know, not one word. He's from 1940, '40. He was already in New York, and this is what, uh, the... He doesn't speak English. So I call him up and I tell him, "Maybe we can, we can sit down and schmooze." "De fees arbitem? Your feet work?" I said, "Baruch Hashem." "Mm," is the same that he hung up on me. You had to, you had to know how it works. I come to his house, and we started speaking about it. He knew all the information about the Rebbe's condition. That was the main... It wasn't good. It wasn't good. He's improving, but very slowly. He was still, he was doing things, it, it, it wasn't all. One thing is for sure, he's gonna have a damaged heart for the rest of his life. One thing is for sure, there's no way that it, he's gonna be able to do all the things he was doing till now. That's why Yechida stopped. That was the first thing they said, "Forget about it." Then when they told him the hours that he has, which he keeps, supposed to be from 9:00 till 11:00, till the AM. That never happened. You know, where did it go to? They told him that you, they, when he, it went from 9:00 to 9:00 too. Here, I'll tell you something about, about, about attack of the heart attack. Just reminded myself now. I have three girls, and they saw what happened, and they were all crying inside there. Sh- they were ter- terrified.

1:55:17 Speaker 5 Small kids. They were small. Comes in the morning, so I'm gonna go back to Montreal. Upstairs, oh, upstairs was closed. The whole upstairs were cl- we, we, we, there was a shul, and we davened downstairs. I used to go every year, Motzei Simchas Torah, I went in Yechidas from, from, from, from, from, for all the years. I'm going back to Montreal. I have three small kids. Upstairs is closed, so what am I staying here for? I'm, I'm telling you the way, Leibel Gona comes downstairs, and he puts his eyes on me, and he keeps on staring at me from the distance. And I stare at him, and it, uh, I walk over to him, and I said... I walk over to him, and before I, I say a word, he says to me, "You're Yom Immeledes of Simchas Torah." I said, "Yeah." "You go in Yechidas every year, Motzei Simchas Torah." I said, "Yeah." And that's it. I'm not going to Yechidas tonight. And I'm standing there. On the spot, I said, "Leibel, I'm here with three small girls. The youngest one is so much, really small, and the oldest one is small. They're all small kids, you know. And I'm planning to daven Shacharis, or finish already Shacharis, eat something, and go back to, to Montreal. Sh- answer me one word, yes or no." He looks at me, and he says, "No." Okay. That's all I need. Tell me that we're not going to Montreal. Why? I don't know what I answered him. I

1:57:01 Speaker 5 didn't know myself why. All those, this came that night, night, night of Yechidas, which was not gonna be a Yechidas. All those, only, but only those who every year had a kifiyes to go into Yechidas should stay. We all stood together. It wasn't so many. I mean, with a kifiyes, like every year, at least maybe 30 or 40. So that includes Orchem that usually- No, no, no. He wouldn't let no Orchem in. No. Orchem, Rebbe, we, we all have hundreds. No way. Leibel went through... And Rebbe, Reibel knew who went in, was maybe 20. But every year for the last place- But you, but you went into the Rebbe's room? I went Motzei, Motzei Yontiff. I went every year. Went- Oh, you, you... No, no, I'm saying, so what happened? So what, what- Oh, so what happened? Yeah. Rebbe was sitting in his room. Rebbe was in his room. He told him, "Wait." Right out it settle. Okay. Right out settle, and you all stand here at this time tonight. Didn't tell us what's gonna be Okay? So first I tell him, he goes, "We're not going to New York, or to Montreal." "Why?" "I'm going into, I don't know, I have yechidas tonight." I, I don't know why. I, I told him, "I don't know what's gonna-- Techie doesn't know what's gonna be." Nobody knew. He didn't tell. I don't know if he knew. The re-- They, they put down a table, a little table. The Rebbe's door was open. The Rebbe was sitting

1:58:34 Speaker 5 on a chair, and everybo- we weren't so many. And we're talking when this, this, for the last 20, 30 or... We went in every year. There's not so many, you know, uh, nothing but 100, you know, you know. And we walk, we walk through, and we gave him the settle in his hand. He took the settle, and he gave us, he gave each one... I don't, I can't remember if it was a piece of cake or it was a, a dollar. I don't remember now. He gave it, and with, and with a bracha, bracha v'atslacha. He looked every, in everybody, he looked in his face, and he gave, no, he gave a dollar. Not... The ca-cake was, was, cake was for Shona Rabba. Shona Rabbe-- I went with the girls. They g-- He gave the girls too. He gave girls twice. And, uh, and he g- and he gave everybody who he, I, I, he gave everybody. He didn't look good. Right. So, so what happened when you went to Zalman Gurary and, and that's- Oh, Zalman Gurary. Anyway, what happened to Zalman? So I went to his house, and, uh, and this should be publicized. This should be publicized, 'cause nobody begins to understand what was doing all the years by the Rebbe. I don't know. Then, then they say it was my fault also. So why didn't my fault seem to Techie? Why not? I'd raise Techie nish. He asked her, "What was the seder today?" "Shona Rabba. Shona Rabba eat kreplach. The

2:00:03 Speaker 5 women were busy. They made kreplach." He said, "They pick him up by car, 8:00 or 8:30 at the bench, Louven Esrick. It was a Shona Rabba." Yeah? Then there was Shacharis, and then he started giving out lechach. He started giving. I, I myself had, I, I took lechach for myself. Then I had girls, and I took the girls. Then I got a basco that girls, girl, uh, girls under bat mitzvah, I don't know what, girls under bat mitzvah who are t- uh, for small girls. And my girl, all my girls were under, but, but, well, the Raw cook problem. I went a second time. Anyway, he came home 5:00. Eight, 8:00 or 8:30, they picked him up. So- He did not eat anything. He didn't e-- He didn't, uh, he didn't bench Louven Esrick. He didn't eat anything. He davened Shacharis, and let's say, let's say they start davening 10:00, so finished up, no, it was later. Let's say he started 1:00, three hours after. Started what? Giving out lechach. Ah, yeah. He came back 5:00, and ich hobn gefreit, I asked him. Ich, I asked him, "Du vilst ep es essen? Do you wanna eat something?" And he said, "No." And he sat do- He had an easy chair. The Rebbetzin already was magala that the Rebbe's po-- He took on himself as a, the, there's two taitschin fun shinishel Shacharis. When the, when it was one Shacharis, when the, when the morning star goes out, uh, well, before the sun comes out, morning,

2:01:50 Speaker 5 morning star, you're not allowed to be in bed. And he would go out of his bed, and he would lie on... He had an easy chair, which really he didn't sleep, but was, he was, he was relaxed with it. But from she-- But from Shacharis, you know, from the, from the, when the morning star, which it's pretty dark outside, you know, that's when the Rebbe went and got out of bed. But that we knew from before. That we knew also from before. But this is all Zalman, Zalman repeating from the Rebbetzin, all this. Right? Yeah, yeah. And Zalman repeat what you hear from Rebbetzin. So he asked, she asked him, "Du vilst ep es essen?" He hadn't eaten a thing. He hadn't eaten a thing that the whole da-- And the whole day was on his feet. He was davening till about 1:00, and then he started giving a lechach for Christ, for three, four hours, for who know- who knows how long. And he came home 5:00. And take it easy. 5:30, Rebbe, you have to go back to 770. Don't think, uh, you got so much time, or 6:00, or something like that. "Du vilst ep es essen?" He said, "No." And he didn't eat anything. Zalman Gurary asked her a question. But then he, when he, any, when, well, not a big... Forget about she's the Rebbetzin. The whole city of New York knows what a kauf is in Lubavitch is. It's Techie's story. What we saw in that same story, we

2:03:19 Speaker 5 never saw a whole year. Okay, what he danced the first and the seventh at kauf, that's one thing. With the Rebbe, that's one thing. But the whole time, the way the Rebbe was making, w- it, it, w- a whole year we didn't see it. The, the el- the elder, must have been about 20 of them, you'd, we didn't see him. They made up, sir, an opening, and they were all over there, but they were, they were by the Rebbe. They were able to see him. And we saw by the Rebbe. We were, uh, we didn't see what's doing by them. There must have been about 20 of them. These are Yidden who are Lubavitch by the Rebbe. They're not youngsters. So- Rebbe went over to him like this. He was going to this These guys, they didn't have good. They were jumping up and down. I heard from somebody else. You know, it, it, Rebbe, the whole akofis was the Rebbe. So Rebbe says to him, "The g- the whole city for New York"- Zalman Gurary says to him. Zalman Gurary says, says to her. He says, "The, everybody knows the whole co- the akofis of 770 is the Rebbe from, from A to Z, from alef bis tov, and the whole kach and everything. And he didn't eat anything the whole... How did you let him go out of the house without eating anything? When he was up so early in the morning, saying Tehillim the whole night, 'cause of Yeshan Rabba you say

2:04:30 Speaker 5 Tehillim. The, I don't know if he sat for a, for a, for a minute. And he didn't eat a thing. How did you let him out of the house when you know what is the simplest seder?" Good question? Okay. Makes sense, huh? And she looked him coldly in the eye, and calmly. "From the day I got married, 1929 till the akofis, it's a few years." Not 1929, 1928, Kislev. Kislev is December. I'm sorry, 1928. Yeah. "From the day that I got married," this should be mefors from everybody, "till today, there was not one instance, doesn't matter what, that I told my husband what to do. The only single person till today who tells my husband what to do or what not to do is my father.

2:05:39 Speaker 6 Hmm.

2:05:42 Speaker 5 Go ahead and deposit that in the bank. Do you understand-- do you understand this language?

2:05:48 Speaker 6 Very good.

2:05:49 Speaker 5 Zalman Gray tells me, "I was a kid, a small kid, four or five years old. The communists took over Russia. Our family was the richest family in the whole Russia. We had the biggest factory of tobacco in the whole Russia. They just took it away. They went into Freedecke Rebbe's room, house, and they took everything away. By the shark's wedding, they said l'chaim on water. Took all the glassware. They, uh, they saw Eppes something, some silver, this sort of thing. They cleared out the Freedecke Rebbe's house. My mother took me, a small kid, and she went to Freedecke Rebbe, who just became Rebbe not much before, and she says, 'Rebbe, I can't raise him. I have nephews who are way, way, way, way, way older than me.' My mother already, uh, ben skunum. She was already a yireh in, uh, in Mir. I think she was already close in her sixties, and her husband died because they took everything away. He couldn't take it. He got a heart attack, and he died. I can't raise my son. Rebbe, he's yours.' And my Rebbe, Rebbe raised me as a son. Took care of my, uh, yeshiva learning. Everything that had to do with me, he raised me." But one thing you should know, there was a yutz v'hatov sheinyud. When I heard when she says so calmly, "The only person who tells me what to do till today is the tate," I give up. Okay? The same for me.

2:07:40 Speaker 6 Oh.

2:07:42 Speaker 5 I went over to Leibman. I told it to him. You should see his face. Oh my God. You start thinking, you know, you think you know everything, eh? You kenesh, you don't even begin to understand. This should be mefarshim.

2:07:58 Speaker 6 Yeah.

2:07:58 Speaker 5 There's no reason why not.

2:08:00 Speaker 6 And she told something in a similar vein to Yudel that night also. Similar, that-

2:08:05 Speaker 5 Could be

2:08:05 Speaker 6 ... I, I never saw, uh, she said, "I never saw the Rebbe not in full control."

2:08:11 Speaker 5 Yeah, that, yeah.

2:08:12 Speaker 6 Over, over, over everything.

2:08:13 Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah.

2:08:13 Speaker 6 Yeah. So it's a similar... Different, but, but, you know, same topic.

2:08:17 Speaker 5 But, but, but not, but, but to go ahead and to say, it's not no, uh, it's not only the, the beginning that she never t-told him what to do. There's no, nobody tells him what to do or... But to say till today the only one that he listens and the only he does on, on the orders of somebody, mem. There were tov sheinyud, tov sheinyud, uh, the, you know, the business closed. Zalman Duchman was a poshed yid. There was a yid here in New York, Zalman Duchman. Learned in Lubavitch. He made a sefer with Meisel very good. He was mekusher to the Rebbe, I'm telling you. He, he, he can't even describe it. And Rebbe was mekarvim. He was, he was a nish poshed. You know, Shmuel was a tzaddik. Rivkin was a tzaddik. Simpson was a tzaddik. These are... And Simpson's, the Rebbe said he should put a roshe chosidim. He, uh, Simpson chazed a hemshach samech vav to the Rashab. Famous samech vav that you learn in the chassidishe. He chazed these ma'amorim to the Rashab. Well, he... Not only he heard it, he chazed it in. The Rebbe said it Friday night in nachwei Shabbos. Motzei Shabbos, he chazed it in over there. He was the secretary by the Freedecke Rebbe. They couldn't understand what he's saying. So he was there, and he repeated. People couldn't understand his talking over there. And Rebbe gave him a book. You're gonna walk out, you're gonna forget everything. And that happened. He doesn't remember a

2:09:49 Speaker 5 thing. We saw these people, you know, they were, they were bottled to the Rebbe. Mamish, mamish nisig leven.

2:10:04 Speaker 6 Hmm. Wow. So what did you hear, what did you hear from, uh, Shmuel Zalmanov?

2:10:23 Speaker 5 I heard something from Shmuel Zalmanov. Bemos, I shouldn't be telling you this. I shouldn't be telling anybody. 'Cause Shmuel Zalmanov wouldn't repeat this to anybody. You know, when Rebbe got a heart attack, I didn't even know about it. I, because I had small kids with me.

2:10:50 Speaker 6 But Shmuel Zalmanov-

2:10:51 Speaker 5 No, wait, I'm-

2:10:51 Speaker 6 No.

2:10:52 Speaker 5 Wait, wait, I wanna wait a second about that They came ringing the bell. Rabbi Hendel was staying by his brother-in-law, Rabbi Tannenbaum. I was somewhere else. They came ringing the bell. It's Yom Tov on, uh, 6:00 in the morning. He answered the door, and he came along that the Rebbe, an hour ago, suffered a major heart attack that 95% is fatal.

2:11:27 Speaker 6 This is the second heart attack?

2:11:28 Speaker 5 Second heart attack. There's now a minyan rabbonim who were in, in yechidus by the Frierdiker Rebbe. Doesn't matter, some in Russia, some in Poland, some in, some in, some in the, some in both. These 10 rabbonim should go to the mikveh, go upstairs to the Frierdiker Rebbe's, uh, yechidus room, and read a pan. Can write, it's Yom Tov, and read a pan, and do what you have to do.

2:11:59 Speaker 6 Read a pan?

2:12:00 Speaker 5 I don't know. Yeah. To, to, to do something.

2:12:02 Speaker 6 To do something, yeah.

2:12:02 Speaker 5 It's, it's Yom Tov, you know, so you can't do it. I didn't even know, but I had small kids. I asked, I asked them. I didn't know. Not everybody even knew about it. He said that's how his day started, you know, with a bang. So he says to me, "Sorry, this doesn't do it." And the shog was oysmannsh. He, he was pusha crazy. Screaming, "Ratovit! Ratovit! Save him! Save him!" You could see that he's, uh, he's completely nuts. So we says, "No, it's oysgeveyn ter harts." Said to him, "We knew that. It's, it's terrible." And then he said, "You know what? No, not everybody was in yechidus in this room." Moshe Zamish Shimon Devorkin was yechidus in Russia. He wasn't here before Tov Shenyut. So he was in yechidus. I'm just giving names, uh, uh, stam gezoy. He had to be in the United States or in Canada, uh, to, to, to, uh, to be, to be in yechidus. But, uh, Russian, the Russian, uh, they didn't get him before Tov Shenyut. Anyway, Rabbi says, "No, we can doch davenin' though. Mit zikh menes, there was a time that we daven takie here. Let's daven here. We have 10 people, so we'll daven here." So they started davening. Started davening. Leibele comes in. "Vu halt men?" They're all holding. Comes back, "Daven schneller!" He's angry. And they understood, he said, uh, "Daven schneller or some..." You know, these rabbonim, they have a shuchnor. They, "Rabbi, schneller. It, it don't go so fast." He comes back

2:13:40 Speaker 5 10 minutes. He said, "I don't understand your people. You don't understand what's me'entshalt. I'm telling you to daven faster." So Leibele said, "You know, Leibele, I have a better idea. You take the Seder, and you daven. We'll give it over to you." But they understood there's somebody behind this whole picture. What do you want from us? Anyway, they daven faster. This is not... So then Hendel says, "You know what? We'll bring up a Sefer Torah from downstairs, and we'll do-- we'll lein here, and we'll bring back the Sefer Torah right as soon as we finish." He come out-- They, they were just about to do it. "Vi halt men?" So they said, uh, "We're gonna send..." "Follow me." You know, follow the leader. "Follow me." There was a table in front of the Rebbe's room, a small table. There was a Sefer Torah there. The Rebbe's door was open, a little bit. They get to leining. Huh? So they want a minyan. They were gonna go in. But they started leining. Leibele comes along in the middle. I don't know who leining. I was the choice Rabbi Hendel leining because he's a baal kore. A little bit faster, okay? Okay, faster. But you know, he... Anyway, it came to maftir. So they said-- They had the Sefer Torah, and every-everything was going normally. It came to maftir. Red light. They open the door. They take the, the, the whole table with the over there. They were gonna start leining, and they bring it into the

2:15:15 Speaker 5 room, and they're leining there. Not in front of the Rebbe. I don't know, in the room. They're leining there. Anyway, it came to maftir. Dorot. They were gonna go-- They were waiting for Leibele. Leibele, who he gave aliyas, I didn't ask. I wouldn't know. I don't know. They, whatever you wanted. Well, Hendel's a kohen. Could be there was a Leibele there, too. I, I didn't go, you know. It wasn't interesting. Nisht dos zein. The Rebbe said maftir.

2:15:40 Speaker 6 Mm-hmm.

2:15:41 Speaker 5 In a rad voice. Gehat yede vot. As far as I'm concerned, a regular maftir.

2:15:49 Speaker 6 Mm.

2:15:50 Speaker 5 Mamish nisht shulebim.

2:15:51 Speaker 6 Yeah.

2:15:51 Speaker 5 Regular maftir. And then they stood that-- Finished over there. So Leibele short, "You're davening Musaf here. You're davening Musaf here." And they do Chen Hendel's a kohen. I think it was... I don't know. Maybe there's another kohen. They do Chen, and then he walked over to the Rebbe. The Rebbe said, "Ya, sure. Kohen, kohen." Regular. After suffering a heart attack that 95% is fatal. Beshrecht, you can, you can understand this.

2:16:22 Speaker 6 Yeah. So what happened with Shmuel Zamimov?

2:16:28 Speaker 5 Before, before everything, before everything, the Rebbe comes home. Just the rebbetzin gives over to my guys. The Rebbe came home. Uh, first of all, let me see what I saw. Since I was good with maskirim, I was bemis. I was good with all of them, with, with, with, with, uh, with all of them. I was good. And, uh, so I would come into the aval. Lot, a lot of times, some, somebody, there was a problem. There's no b-- If, if you wanna go out at, at Beis Mid-- First of Beis Midrash is very crowded. It's not a big room. Uh, we learned upstairs Beis Midrash. It's not a big room. It was full of bachurim. There's no place to move. Without-- So, you know, if it would be in, like, in a building, y-y-you're very crammed. So we would talk of learning, but I, I, I had to get up. So I go into the mesader. I myself heard more than once, more than once, Chaim Leibman... He, he always spoke to, to Kadikov. He didn't know Groner and all these guys. Binomin, he didn't know these guys, Kadikov. I'm standing there, you know, and I'm gonna go. Picks up the phone. "Chaim is there? Tell him to ranking." He came to ranking. He was there close to three hours. When? On a Tuesday, on a Wednesday, on a Thursday. This I know for a fact, everybody knew for a fact, that the, the, the Rebbe came home a-a-and the Rebbes repeated it, stammered to

2:18:03 Speaker 5 these guys, "Dorten, the Rebbe come home in a very s- very happy mood." I'll say it in Yiddish. "Chaim gehat zeire eingenome tog. I had today a real, uh, pleasant, pleasant day. Chaim was by me for a few hours." He usually stay around three hours. But why do you think the Rebbe enjoyed it? Like, what, uh, what were they doing? Talking, learning? Well, uh, uh, first of all, Chaim Leib-- There's a few reasons. There's a few reasons. First of all, Chaim Leibman was the closest person to the Friediker Rebbe. Forget about family. He spent more time with the Friediker Rebbe than the family spent. Number two, he conducted everything that had to do with, with in Russia. In "Neshing Sameiser" it says that the Ramash, as soon as they came into the room, before, as soon as they walked in, right away they knew they didn't come for a, for a visit. They saw the first thing the Ramash and somebody else went to Chaim Leibman to start burning all the papers he has. And but, and, and it says in "Neshing Sameiser". And by the time they came, because that's where all the, the, the, the, all the evidence wasn't in the Friediker Rebbe's room. Chaim Leibman ran it. And they came there, and now we, we came too late. It's all burnt. He had a fire there, and he put, put all the papers, everything they found absolutely- So you're saying the Rebbe enjoyed spending time with him- He, he- Because of this

2:19:38 Speaker 5 ... he enjoyed spending time with him. Mm-hmm. That's all. But what was the story with- And I, I wanna tell you something. Chaim Leibman had no family. He had no family look. And he was the closest thing to the Friediker Rebbe, and he wasn't a Hasid. Yitzgron tells me that Erev Yontif, let's say Shavuot. Erev Yontif, Chaim Leibman would, w-would wheel in a wheelchair the Friediker Rebbe at the head of the table over there where they used to eat and everything. You didn't see Chaim Leibman till after Havdalah two days later. So I want-- So let me return a little bit of back, a little bit back. So I'm keeping tabs on what's going on. It doesn't matter. You can go back 50 years. So Hirsprung, you're saying that's how Hirsprung started. When you were in the kollel, that's when you started getting involved with Lubavitch. Yeah, like I mentioned- So one second. So- Yeah ... and after kollel, you asked the Rebbe about a shlichus. Like, what happened over there? How'd you end up in Montreal for good? I thought that Rebbe... No. Okay, you're mi- you're mixing two things. Uh, what do you... Okay. Myself, I thought that shlichus is not going. He's not answering me on that, that. You wrote to the Rebbe about shlichus? Yes. I wasn't getting answers. And then so one thing led to the other, and I thought that... And, and Isaac Shvei, by me, Isaac Shvei was certain degree my i- uh, uh, my idol. Yankov Shvei

2:21:10 Speaker 5 is-- he's a different story. Isaac Shvei was a mushlum. He was sharp like a razor, a mind 100, not 99.9%, 100% solid badas. He's one of a kind. And I was extremely close with him. And he got a bug into his head. And he-- I then said to him, "Why don't you write into the Rebbe? Don't you have to listen to me. What's the avlas Lubavitch will have a gvir? Tell me what the Rebbe do. You think Rebbe doesn't need money? You think the Moses don't need money? What's the avla for it? You think there's, there is an avla? Ask the Rebbe. You wanna say it in my name? Say it in my name. It's not gonna make a difference one way or the other." And that I never did. And I stopped talking to Rebbe's going for that. So you became a gvir? Yeah, I became a... Yeah, I had a successful business, yeah. So did you have interaction with the people- I had interaction with the Rebbe, yes. No, with the people- I gave, I gave a very m- I sent money into the Rebbe. Big money, cash money. Big money. And the Rebbe sent it out. And I told, and I told, uh, uh, what's it? I told already, uh, Binomin right away. That's it. The Rebbe-- There was a whole maise about a fabregen, and the Rebbe was speaking words which not everybody understood what he's talking about, and it hit me right away. And the Rebbe wants money, and the

2:22:49 Speaker 5 Rebbe wants big money. And Rebbe never said those words, but it was going around there. And, uh, the next day, Shmuldooit, Shmuldooit Raichik, he's in Los Angeles. You know, I was very close with him. He says to me, uh, Shmuldooit didn't speak English. He says to me, "Do you understand Rebbe's talking about?" I said, "I think so. He wants big money." "But Meir, we're talking big money." "Yeah." I, I don't know who I gave it through. That I... Could be I gave it to him, but he's in the MiAmi-- but he's in Los Angeles. Maybe it's... I don't know. I sent it in with somebody. Cash money, and I'm not talking three zeros. I'm talking higher than the three zeros. And at first it took money, so I had to get, of course I had to get it together. Of course, we got... And I have Canadian. I'm in Canada. No, I said I had to work on it. And there's a certain amount you could do, which you can't do, which you do it. No, no. So I had a whole bunch of things.

2:23:44 Speaker 6 Did you have-

2:23:44 Speaker 5 I got it to New York.

2:23:46 Speaker 6 Was there, was there, uh, business associates that had stories with the Rebbe? Because it, because it made-

2:23:51 Speaker 5 No, no, no

2:23:52 Speaker 6 ... connection with them?

2:23:53 Speaker 5 I had no, no, no, no. I started a new business altogether.

2:23:56 Speaker 6 No, I'm asking you, did you have people you met in bus- in the business world that you connected with the Rebbe that had stories with the Rebbe?

2:24:03 Speaker 5 Yeah. There were, there were c- times over there, yeah. The, the, there's... Yes. Yeah, yeah, that... But that's not, that's not the gate to go into. Everybody knew I'm Lubavitch, and everybody knew I'm Chassid. Not only that, not only that, I lived w- I was born, my wife also, together with all the Chassidim in Montreal.

2:24:22 Speaker 6 What, what was this? There was... I think I heard a story that someone was terminally ill, and he asked the Rebbe for a bracha for him. Simchas Torah, he asked the Rebbe for a bracha.

2:24:33 Speaker 5 Yeah. Yisroel Chanah ben David, uh, was a, a, a, a Yid, a, a Sefardic Jew who, who was b'emes frum. A lot of them have their, you know, their, uh... He lived for a few years in a city in, in, uh, in Japan, which I, which I visited dozens and dozens of times. And he lived there, and he had a sukkah, and he was a frum Yid. And, uh, to the extent that he had a son living in Montreal, and he comes... I get a telephone call. I'm just sure how, what kind of what it is. They were all, they were all Sefardim, clean-shaven, very wealthy. But they, but they were like plain people. Not... You don't think it... Pushy to people. And, uh, and they had their shichas with the Rebbe. It's not for public. This we knew, that they went into the Rebbe's room with blueprints of buildings which are connected with Chabad, and they were there for an hour or two, and you could see from the window that, that, that there's papers and everything. They weren't speaking to anybody, which I c-couldn't get also. And all I knew that it cost them big, big, big money. Nobody knew how much. But they were botl bintzius to the Rebbe. We wouldn't even go to him for brachos or nothing. The Rebbe said, "Moshe Rabbeinu." That, that's it, and then, uh... Anyway, he got very sick. And, uh, anyway, I don't know what it was. They would tell me half stories they were

2:26:07 Speaker 5 telling me. And then we came, it was, uh, it's Yom Tov, Tishrei. So I was gonna go to New York for Simchas Torah, and, um, so they... So the son, the son calls me up, he says, "Y-when... W-w-mention, mention my father to the Rebbe." They wrote to the Rebbe. The Rebbe knows about him. I don't think they got answers or, or they, there was something, there was some- they, there was something lacking, which I didn't push too much. There were shit I didn't push. You know, I'm not related to them. Oh, close? Yes, very close. So I went to Kos shel Bracha, and I didn't know, Meshitas Maasi, if I should do it or not. Od God kohavrin. I'll tell you, Maasi, so sure you... Members, I forgot about it. I have to thank you. You think this is yesterday? You're going back a long time, Rebbe, closer to sixty years than to fifty. Anyway, I come for Kos shel Bracha. I don't know if I had kids with me. I didn't... I don't think I had kids with me. I don't know. It's not the game. I don't think... I'll tell you why. I ha-- My hand was always geshtrekt. He puts down the Becher, and he starts making with the hands. Now listen, I'm not a young-- I'm not a newcomer in Lubavitch. We, we... How they say? I've seen it all. When I say all, I mean take all. You should see... And I'm standing right in front of him, face to

2:27:24 Speaker 5 face. He's facing the Ohel. I'm facing him. I, I have a... I'm saying to him, "You see the face. You see the simcha." I'm seeing this. If, if there was ever a mitzvah, simcha put together, this is pro-- This, I've no... And I've seen it all. I was a bit... I, I, I've seen it all. I, I'm not, I'm not a youngster. I'm, I'm not a newcomer here, you know? Like I started with Rebbe when I was fourteen years old. I'm not a... That's a, it's, uh... I haven't seen it. That is Yisroel Chanah ben David. So I put... So I g- I took another c- another c- another, another keli, another cup, and I had to wait. And I'm facing the Rebbe. Don't think it was so easy. I'm fa- I'm standing like a statue, and the Ohel, they never saw such a thing in their... I'm not moving, you know, like when we're... I'm standing right in front of him. Anyway, he finishes over there. He goes to take a Becher, and they were singing so loud, so I had to bend over to him. He's supposed to hear me, or else he wouldn't even be able to hear me because they were still do. So I bend over, and I speak into his ear.

2:28:29 Speaker 6 To the Rebbe?

2:28:30 Speaker 5 To the Rebbe. I bend over. I don't remember whether. And I said very shortly that he, he, he's gonna have something, and they... Uh, he's, he's gonna have something, but I'm not sure what it's gonna be. It was something like that. I think they were supposed to make a very serious operation. Number one, they don't know if it's gonna be successful, and I'm, I'm not sure about this. Or they know-- they don't know if he's gonna survive. But that's one thing. Without a survi- without this, it's goodbye, that's for sure. Dorten. So I said it bekitzur, a bekitzur, and I, and I remember. Gee, you're taking pretty good. Al ha dauven. He puts down the cup, and he says loud, "Evet hoben a refuah kruever" And everybody answered Amen. A lot of people answered Amen. I can say, I don't think everybody heard. "Evet hoben a refuah kruever" For Kachaver. They made an operation. It was beyond everybody's hopes, and he was a gantz gesund.

2:29:26 Speaker 6 Wow.

2:29:27 Speaker 5 He was a gantz gesund. How do you know this?

2:29:30 Speaker 6 I heard about it. I heard the stories.

2:29:31 Speaker 5 I for- I forgot about this. Uh, my, my is... I, I would wanna add something that I think is lacking in Lubavitch, and it's im- very important to know. In general, nothing to do with New York and, and globally. And I, and I... And, and this chidush on the table... Well, okay, ninety-nine percent don't even know about it. Okay, I'm not saying nothing. Very few people know about it. That Alibah de-emes, forget about Yichei mit Mashiach ad aldah. That's a ganesh negeah. That the Lubavitcher Rebbe, this statement, and there's people who willing to sign on this, and these people signing it, that it's true, was the biggest ‹foreign language› in his time. Be-be-negla. Including everybody, excluding nobody. And I was involved in it. Yes, okay. Wait a minute. Wait, you didn't hear the whole story. Oh, okay. You didn't hear the whole story. I got married. I was in the business, and I was the boss. And I, I can... I, I, um, I was the boss. So I made up, my wife went along with it. And Shabbos I didn't go. Shabbos I didn't go. A yontif, it depends the yontif. The last day's yontif, I used to go after Pesach. I stood by my father. Anyway, m-my wife went along with the ki- and the kids, when they got older, if I was able to take them, I took them also. To my boys, to play these videos and everything. Not going into all that. I started going to the Rebbe a lot.

2:31:22 Speaker 5 There's no reason wh- what, what, what is my... I never liked a vacation. I'm not going down... We never went once to Florida. You know, I, I'm a ‹foreign language›, you know. I, I, what... My, my, my wife never asked me for money. She always knew where the money is, so she took all she wanted, you know. And I never went to Florida. I didn't go for all these things. I'm not ‹foreign language› I wasn't interested. Pusha wasn't interested. You know. The only thing I did, I enjoyed going to the Farbrengens. So Shabbos, I didn't go to Shabbos work. Ma'ata be home. You teskise, you shvat, achosh Pesach, especially if she was by Rabbi Hendel, you know. So I started going, and I started going, so I started getting customers. Didn't have to tell them much. Uh, uh, I, I had a, a papi in law, the Rosh Yeshiva, the Rov, Rabbi Hendel, and I had the spook, you know, in the finish. And these, these, these are, uh, mate, classmates, you know, for, for not votes, you know. They came in the same boat together. And then I had, I had this one and that one, you know. So I used to... I, I, I would take a car. I would take a car, and I'd go to New York. I brought Hirschbrun into Lubavitch. I to- did I mention this before? You, you said it. I said before. Yeah. And when he finished, when, when he finished the year of learning, so the

2:32:43 Speaker 5 Rebbe says you should become a Rosh Yeshiva, and he was maskim. In Lubavitch. In Lubavitch. In the beginning. So there were two people that he was very close with. Nothing to do with Chassidis. Rabbi Hendel, they were both on the besdin in Montreal. Uh, and they, they were business partners. Every week, there was a, there was a besdin. You had to sit with shailas, uh, and he became a av ha-Roshi, and Hendel became the head of the besdin, and he w- and they were... They attack a very good friends. When they were on the boat going from, from Dorton to Montreal in the middle, when the Rebbe... The first time when he was on way to Montreal, this Hir-Hirschbrun was throwing up everything that he was eating. They made like this. Lubavitcher were alone. Nine bochurim. Uh, the Lubliner were like this. He was throwing up everything until they were fed up with him. They were... He was dirty and stinking and everything. Nobody wanted to feed him. Gingras took a soup. I don't know how he got a soup, how he made a soup. Don't even ask me. And he would feed him with a left like you feed a baby. Probably saved his life. See, by him, Gingras and him personally, he didn't show anything, you know, but I knew that these two are favorites by him. So I figured, I say: "You know what? I'm taking Gingras. I'm taking Hendel. Why don't I take Gingras?" Um, Hirschbrun. And I took him. Hirschbrun.

2:34:06 Speaker 5 Uh, Hirschbrun. Why don't I take Hirschbrun? So I asked him. He says he wants to go. So I'm, I didn't do anything. In those years, I would do... I would land an hour... I would land. I would take a car. I would come in seven thirty. I parked near seven seventy. Rebbe came on eight thirty. Three thirty or four o'clock, I would drive back myself. Days, day, in middle, we stopped at Amshakovitz. We stopped at in Brest area. They put on 1000 film. They'd have him. I did all of that. I was able to do it. I was young. And then I got him into Yechidas. "You should go into Yechidas." And then he had something. He went into Yechidas, all his achin, and he became, he became a big chossid from the Rebbe. And then he asked for Yechidas only in Torah. And Chabad was maskim. And he went in, and he tells the Rebbe like this, and the Rebbe knew. And when he walked in the first time, the Rebbe said like this, "A Gemara, "‹foreign language›." So he said, "‹foreign language›." Rebbe gave a big smile. "What is this? Akiva ben Yosef was a good Jew, you know. We don't have to say ‹foreign language›." He asked for Yechidas only in learning. The Rebbe was maskim. And he walks into the Rebbe, and he says that, "I took... I have merchandise from Lublin, that I asked all the Polish gedolim," and they were the... He didn't hold the Litvishe there, Mr. Gedolim.

2:35:43 Speaker 5 The Polish, yeah, they were all Chassidish, yeah. The Polish gedolim, but gedolim, taka gedolim. He mentioned who, giants of the giants. "Then I came to Vilna, to, to Vilna during the war. Chaim Moise, the Biskorov, I asked him. Then in, in these, I went to Chesterov. Nobody answered me." And the Rebbe says, "And ‹foreign language› the Yeshua is gonna come from this room." Yes. I wish you luck. The Rambam made a boo-boo. He forgot a Yerushalmi. Hirschbrod said? Yeah. He forgot a-- Hirschbrod has the Rambam has-- He actually has everything. Baal Peh, he had everyth- mamesh everything. Not ‹foreign language›. As soon as he says the words Reb gives a smile. The Rambam, yeah, he nearly fainted. "Where's ‹foreign language› a, a, a Yerushalmi?" He said, "Yeah." He was very terrified. He says, "Nobody was able to answer me, and I didn't even say what we're talking about. It is very-- a mile ahead of me." He says it was, "You think the Rambam forgot a Yerushalmi?" He says, "It bothers me. Rambam knew the whole Torah, ‹foreign language› a Yerushalmi, she'll forget him. ‹foreign language› forget, I don't know, something, I don't know what." But Yerushalmi, you don't know how to learn a Yerushalmi. And he started teaching him a Yerushalmi. I walked up, I said, "Good. I never heard this. I'm not gonna hear this only here." And he started going to the Rebbe. Now sit. Now we sit. And he became a Hasid. And then he asked if he's able... No, another

2:37:29 Speaker 5 time, if he's able to speak with the Rebbe in learning. That was you just said. Yeah, but they did, they did so then, and he wanted over here, and he told, and he told Chabad Chabad it's gonna be for a long time. It could be any time you give me, daytime, at night, any time, and he went in for a long time. He says, "He ‹foreign language› as the Godol Hador" Now I have a maiseh. I don't know why I didn't tell you till now. This probably is the main maiseh. This is from, this is from, from Zamanoff, Shmuel Zamanoff. And this attack of Hirschbrod's Chabad Torah. By the Rebbe's w-- By our Rebbe's, the Rebbe's chasune was in Varshe. And there was a head table. Shmuel Zamanoff was a boccher, Choshuve boccher. Shmuel Zamanoff was a boccher. Shmuel Zamanoff was the waiter of the head table. On the head table was the chosson, uh, the previous Rebbe, uh, the previous Rebbe's father-in-law, Nechemiah Deniz, Avraham Schneerson, the chosson. That's it. The Rosh Yeshiva. No Rosh Yeshiva then this time. I don't know. Maybe the Rosh Yeshiva. Anyway, Shmuel Zamanoff is, Shmuel Zamanoff is the... Shmuel Zava's order was, number one, to see the gashmius, the everything should be served they should have. And there's gonna be Rabbonim and Rebbes are coming in. As soon as they come in, you sit them down. On the head table they left an empty place or two empty places, and make sure that he has to eat, to

2:39:03 Speaker 5 drink, and everything, "Because it's beyond me. I can't do it." And that's what he did. In the middle of... This is Shmuel Zamanoff doing the talking. He's the waiter, and he never said this before. The first time his son, his son hears that, hears that. I think it's one of the first times when I went there. I knew how to open him up. How I did it, it's not ‹foreign language›. And, uh, and then the Lubliner Rov came in. Oh, Lubliner Rov came in. Now I have to stop. Now you see, I forget. The Rebbe was farbrengen Shabbos. Previous Rebbe? No, our Rebbe. Mm-hmm. And the m-- the first sicha was a long shtickel nigleh sicha. The Rebbe start-- I was there. Don't ask me where and when and where, I don't know. And Rebbe start, and he said, "By my chasune, the Lubliner Rov was by the chasune. The shver, my father-in-law, ‹foreign language› so much." Who's the Lubliner Rov? The Lubliner Rov was, was by my- Who, who is that? Meir Shapiro. Meir Shapiro. That's the, the Daf HaYomi today. Okay. Was a Chassidishe year. It's called Lubliner Rov. Okay. You know, before we go further, I once asked Hirschbrod, number one, a few questions. Number one, if they knew what Yud Tes Kislev is. He said, "The Lubliner Rov was from an Chassidishe year. He was a chokoveh Hasid who's an ‹foreign language› from the Vizhnitzer Maggid, who's yortzeit is Yud Tes Kislev." They would mention by the Suda that besides the

2:40:32 Speaker 5 Lublin- besides the Maggid, his talmid, his big talmid, the Ba'al HaTanya and Ba'al HaShulchan Aruch, his chag ha'gola is this day, was always mentioned. To get into, into Lublini yeshiva, you had to know besides a thousand, two thousand blatt Gemara, that business, a, a full beard, you're not allowed to touch it. A hat, he's not even gonna go into it, because this has such a hat as... And he has to be a Chassidishe boccher. Hat he's not even go into. Payos he's not even gonna go into. He had to go in the weekdays with a langer achol. Shabbos he had to have a Sukkah pote with a gartel, and he had to go to mikveh. How much and when, I'm not gonna go into it. All the bochurim were Chassidishe bochurim. The bochurim to know a ch-- a thousand blatt Gemara, Baal Peh, that was Pinchas Hirschbrod. And that was Pinchas Hirschbrod when he was there in Lublin. Right. So what I'm by the farbrengen is he said the, the Rebbe said that, uh, Meir Shapiro was at his chasune. Well, by... And he gave me a present, Ohr Ha-- a sefer that he wrote, Ohr HaMeir, which in this sefer he speaks the same minyan which Rebbe speaking then. Mm-hmm. The chevra went out. They went into Rebbe's library, and they found the sefer. In the next far Chabad, on the cover, on the outside cover, he writes to the chosson, to the outside cover titles that I don't know the phrase, the, the

2:41:56 Speaker 5 great of the greatest, uh, big, big, big titles. Now, the Lubliner Rov didn't get excited with him because he can't learn then, you know. He was a giant of the giants. Okay. I, but, uh, but, uh, when- The titles that he wrote to the Rebbe, to the Chassan. Uh, uh, he wrote it on- Yeah ... the Sefer and that- Mm-hmm ... and he gave it. What happened, by the Chassan- This is, this is her back from the Chassan ... Shmuel Zalman tells me later the whole story. Sh- I was the waiter. Lubliner Rov came in, I sat him down next to the Chassan. The, uh, Friediker Rebbe goes over and to the Lubliner says, "Lubliner Rov, red mit de, mit de, mit de, mit de Chassan in lernen." "Speak to him in learning." So they start right away, "Ni, vos lernst di?" "What are you learning?" And I'm standing in behind. I heard every word. I don't know if he remembers. He didn't remember, didn't, I wasn't interested. And the Chassan opens his mouth, nonstop over half an hour. And I see the Lubliner sitting there, not that he's listening. He's, he's in it. That's why the kop of the fis, you know, he's in it, and pulling, he's been listening to it every word. And when he finishes, he's a gantse tsudzl, and he turns to the Friediker Rebbe, they're sitting at the same table. He says, "Lubavitcher Rebbe, you took a Chassan, a goy olam" Now, Lubliner Rov didn't give a goy olam

2:43:15 Speaker 5 for every Tom, Dick, and Harry. When he said a goy olam, he meant a goy olam because he saw him how big a smile. The Friediker Rebbe answers, "I know from it, I want you to know it too." Hmm. It's not end, it doesn't fi- This we heard, this we knew, but then he comes along, and he g- uh, in this house, he gives me his dessert. The next day, the chassan kal were in a small Yiddish hotel near the hall of the, the chassanah. They need shmirah, the seven-day they need shmirah. Who's gonna be the shomer? Shmuel Zalmanov. I'm a yeshiva bachur, so I bought myself a little table with a chair, and, uh, and, uh, and a Gemara, a Maimarah, and Sefardis, and I'm sitting and learning, you know? To make sure that nobody, that nobody goes into them, and there the two of them are, the chassan kal, they're in there. In the middle of the day, he had to do something, he did that, he didn't tell me, that's not nicaya. In the middle, the Lubliner Rov comes with a sefer. He wants to go into the chassan kal. I say, "Hey, hold it. It's a married couple. Wait a minute." So he goes in, they go in over there. I didn't look at the watch, but it was way, way, way over, uh, an hour. Way, way over an hour. He comes out, and Shmuel Zalman was a yid, a benteide. He's not, he's not a guy, he's not... He

2:44:36 Speaker 5 comes out, you know what word he's mispelled? He came out, and he was a gantze fakshtif. He said, "Iche vey, this I've never saw. After everything is said and done, this person is in the 20s." Okay, in the bigger 20s. So what? He's in the 20s. I have never spoken to a person in learning the way I spoke to this person in his 20s. Usually somebody is in, in 70 and 80s, which I also never met this. I'm speaking things which I never got to first base, and he got me to first base. And I spoke to everybody. It's unbelievable. Now this, I was thinking, should be publicized. I'm responsible for it. Okay, he came to ask Shmuel Zalmanov. He, he, he took a trip. But th- this which happened over there, which if he, when he said it, "Lubavitcher Rebbe, gin im ena goy in olam," the Friediker Rebbe answered, "Iche veis for dem, ich vil zol dokh vis," and I want you to also know. And he was mispelled at, at, at, he's in the 20s. I haven't seen a man in the, in, in, in the big years should, uh, matzah. He knows everything. Matzah klorkheit, everything. Uh, he was oys mensch. You're talking about Lubliner Rov, who made Lubliner Yeshiva one of the biggest kedaim haTorah in dann. Talking about a 20, uh, 26, 27, 28-year-old guy. This should be meforsim. Now it will be. No banners. Who, this, I, I heard it from Shmuel Zalmanov. I'm sorry he's not available.

2:46:16 Speaker 5 His son, Nebuch, the son in Kobe, he also went. Yeah. No, it's a maaleh bucher. I didn't make this up, and none are made it up. Hirschman, uh, gehalten Lubavitcher Rebbe, and he went in, and he s- he s- he saw, he said then himself, "Everything that every... Whatever he touched," and he says, "You know, Pinchas Hirschman can touch anything." And he was there, you know, like you say, the kop of the fis that had this completely. He said, "That I never saw." It should be mekubal, that should be. Yes, so keyach have a plotkin. Yes. It was a pleasure. I wanna tell you one of the reasons why I do this. I never do this, and I don't do it. The guys know I have stories, so I, I don't really hide it for them. They get a little bit now and then, you know. But, uh, the maiseh is you have to realize that you see today, you see today bachurim in Yerushalayim, taidim, the shluchim. I wanna make a, an announcement something which affects me, and I see it every week, mon- or every Kamat every week, and everybody also sees it. I'm waiting for somebody to, to explain to me how is it possible. And I see a couple, a man and a woman, and, uh, she, the word, the m- the m- the mother or the father holding a little baby. A little baby, looks like a, like a, like a month old. It's not a baby from two, three

2:47:37 Speaker 5 years old. No, no, a little baby. Now let me ask you, how old can this guy be? I'm not asking for his birth certificate, but if we'll say the average age is from 23 to 25, somewhere around there, 26 to 26. So how old is this baby? It's a little kid. It's a little, it's a little ba- a half a year, a year. Nah, it's not even a year. It'd rather be a year. So how old is he? 27, 28, 29. How old is he? He never saw the Rebbe. And she for sure not And I see this every week. And where are they going? Where are they going? They're going not to city of Washington, that's a big city. The state of Washington, it was just last week. Where are they going? There's a college in the state of Washington. Hoo, hoo, hoo. Yeah, and there's a few hundred college students. Hmm, boy, that's-- a- how long are you going? For the rest of your life. Now let me ask you, what's pushing them? Tell me, I, I, I'm just curious kind of thing. And I think the guy is 100, I think both of them are 100% normal, just as normal as everybody's watching this, this, uh, this site on the ma- on, on the Internet. They never saw the Rebbe, and they're willing to me-- And I say they, they... Look, if they weren't with them, they wouldn't send them. And you see this constantly. They're going the-- And I'm not talking

2:48:57 Speaker 5 about going to Vietnam and all these places. That's not a place where to live, and there's Jews there. They go there- I myself have traveled- They go, they go there too. I, I myself have traveled to the, to the Far East dozens of times. When I tell someone a dozen, there's 12. Don't ask me any questions. And, uh, uh, some not, nisht gebleiben, not to believe. And I'm seeing myself to live in this place 365 days a year. This is mamesh mesirus nefesh. And this you see constantly, shluchim going out the whole world. Let's stop and think about it. They never seen the Rebbe and they're going to such places. Okay, if it's going to Detroit or Chicago or North City, I can understand. It's, it's, it's normal to s- it's normal. Of course there, y- there's work and everything, a shliach, everything fine. But to go today, even in Canada, Canada is a big country, you know. And they go to some of those places. They have one place, one place that has the best skiing in North America, Banff. B-A-N-F. If somebody would come to me, "Where is that?" No man's land, but it has the best skiing. I never put on pair of skis in my life. The best skiing, and a shliach goes there. I don't know if he lives the whole year, but he's going there. It's true. The, uh, they, they come from the whole world to s- and so Jews also come. Yeah. Go to Banff. How... He

2:51:27 Speaker 5 never s- There's no, there's no words to even to describe it. This is thing that something we should learn, we should, we should learn from it. What means this kasherus from the Rebbe? People who are willing and are doing it actually never saw the Rebbe be-gashmius and prepared to give everything away. Hashem should send them parnassa, they shouldn't have to go on. No, but the, but, but people will give them. It's true. There are a lot, a lot of tourists go there. There's thousands to tens of thousands of people out there, uh, to, to ski, and of course there's Jews also. Of course, and I don't know if they have a shul. I don't believe they have a shul. It's not even a city. It's a skiing. Uh, I don't know what they have there. But something to know, we should learn in the Baruch Hashem. It's like it's, it's after Gimmel Tammuz with everything that if you do say yechi, you couldn't say yechi. It has an absolute in utzu to do that Lubavitch is alive in such a state that it wasn't alive ever the way it's alive today. Amazing. Yes, sure. All right.