Ep. 20 // "But I Want A Smile" w/ Mrs. Sandy Weinbaum

00:00 Speaker 1 All I wanted was a smile from the Rebbe. Never got one. The Rebbe always told me, "Work harder, do more. You're not doing enough. Do more, do more, do more." And never smiled. Never. Never, never, never. And everybody said to me, "You should take it as a compliment. It means you're a proper Chossid." Nach, I wanted a smile.

00:17 Speaker 2 Right.

00:17 Speaker 1 I was desperate for a smile.

00:18 Speaker 2 I-

00:18 Speaker 1 Never got one. He knew it wasn't gonna make a difference, or maybe he felt he'd get more out of me if he didn't smile, so I'd go away and try harder.

00:30 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2023. My name is Bentzi Hofstien, and I will be your host. Let's begin. This week's guest is Mrs. Sandy Weinbaum from London, England. Mrs. Weinbaum's story begins close to 60 years ago with a Shliach knocking on the door of her father's office, and comes full circle today with Mrs. Weinbaum being the matriarch of a very large family of 14 children

06:02 Speaker 1 My mother was evacuated, so her education came to quite an abrupt end. She hated being evacuated, and she and a friend ran back to London despite the bombing. Um, my parents got married, lived in Ilford. We went to school, and then my father was doing quite well in business, and he came home one day. We were sitting, having dinner, and he said, "I had a very interesting mashgiach come to see me today."

06:30 Speaker 3 So they were traditional Jews at the time?

06:32 Speaker 1 Traditional. Um, we went to shul every week.

06:36 Speaker 3 Mm.

06:36 Speaker 1 I can't say we were 100% Shomer Shabbos, but we went to shul every week-

06:40 Speaker 3 Mm

06:40 Speaker 1 ... without fail. Um, and we ate kosher at home. The house was strictly kosher at home. And they were very aware of tzedakah and doing the right things. And my father said, "This mashgiach came to see me, and he had a new line. Told me about what he was collecting for. I gave, and then he said, 'Do you have time to learn?' So I said to him, 'I'm really busy. I don't have the time, and it's not a good time now.'" He said, "But nobody's ever suggested that they wanted to interact more with me." My mother was fascinated by this. Who was he? He's a very young guy. His name was Feivish Vogel.

07:21 Speaker 3 Hmm.

07:22 Speaker 1 Um, I think he was 28 at the time. And anyway, he, he came to see my father again, struck up a relationship with him, and then unfortunately, my father's business partner died under travi- tragic circumstances. And, um, Feivish turns up at the levaya, and as he and my father were filling in the grave, most of the people had already left to go back for the cocktail party afterwards, um, Feivish said to my father, "Do you have time to learn now?" And my father said yes. And he started coming to our house once a week to learn with my father. My mother joined in as well-

08:07 Speaker 3 Hmm

08:07 Speaker 1 ... being my mom. And slowly, things started to change at home. Um, I was in my early teens, busy with my social life, with school. I went to a Zionist youth group, um, had a busy social life. I was very happy the way I was.

08:31 Speaker 3 Mm.

08:32 Speaker 1 No, I wasn't looking for a revolution or to change, save the world, or do anything else. And the changes that were going on around me were okay. They didn't affect me too much. Um, I'd started going to Bnei Akiva by that time, so Shabbos afternoon, I was busy with Bnei Akiva. So if we were, if we had, we were becoming Shomer Shabbos, it didn't really impinge, as I said, on my social-

08:58 Speaker 3 Mm

08:58 Speaker 1 ... efforts. Um, then I, we came to 1967 and the Six-Day War, and after the war, I was desperate to go to Israel as a volunteer, but I was too young. I was 16, 17. Um, so the Bnei Akiva shliach, um, arranged for me to go to his kibbutz, which was Sa'ad, which is famous now 'cause it's just by Gaza. Um, and I went there, and I was totally sold on the Zionist dream. So when I came back, in my head, I'd already worked out that I was going to do my A-levels, which is like you do your, what you call matric, and then you do an advanced level in order that you can go to university.

09:50 Speaker 3 Right.

09:51 Speaker 1 And after I did my A-levels, I was gonna go to university in Israel and live the dream. Um, my parents were not so sure about this. I got a place at Manchester to do art and drama, which is not terribly academic, but it was, it says a lot about the sort of person I was. And I, meanwhile, applied to Hebrew U to do their one-year, um, overseas students program. My parents were really angry, not at all pleased with me, and-

10:26 Speaker 3 Wh- why is that? 'Cause you weren't being academic enough, or because they didn't want you leaving England?

10:30 Speaker 1 Um, no, they didn't want... Remember, no cell phones, very little communication.

10:35 Speaker 3 Sure.

10:35 Speaker 1 I'd be away from home, doing whatever I wanted, which they didn't always approve of. I wasn't a bad girl. I mean, it was the mid-'60s, and I certainly wasn't into drugs or a heavy scene or anything at all like that. But they just didn't want me being out of their remit.

10:52 Speaker 3 And you were the only daughter?

10:54 Speaker 1 No, I, my second, my sister is two years younger than me.

10:58 Speaker 3 Okay.

10:58 Speaker 1 She's a shochet in South Africa now. Um, but they just didn't, I don't think they trusted me. That's the long and short of it. So the arguments went backwards and forwards. By that time, through a series of events, my parents had changed my brother over from his public school, City of London, to Lubavitch School, and my brother came into my room one evening, and he said, "You know, why don't you just write to the Rebbe?" And I thought, "Write to the Rebbe? Ridiculous. I don't even know-"

11:27 Speaker 3 But one sec, one sec, one sec, one second. Who was the Rebbe at that time? To you.

11:30 Speaker 1 The Rebbe was somebody, the Rebbe was somebody that my father had gone to see-

11:35 Speaker 3 Mm

11:35 Speaker 1 ... um, when he had financial problems. The Rebbe had given him amazing advice. He was totally sold on the Rebbe. Um, and then my mother had gone back with my father to meet the Rebbe, and the Rebbe had suggested at that time that they change my brother over to, um, from his non-Jewish school to Lubavitch, which was, um, like chalk and cheese. So- Um, they had-- they were definitely getting involved and had Feivish here and, and Rabbi Sudak and the Rebbe. It was like a three-pronged attack, and which was going over my head. I wasn't that interested. Um, when Rabbi Berger would come in the house, he made a point of trying to talk to me, and I made a point of being not available. Um-

12:26 Speaker 3 That... 'Cause that's what I wanted to ask you. Like, your, your brother comes and tells you to talk to the Rebbe. Like-

12:29 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I was-

12:29 Speaker 3 ...what does the Rebbe mean to you at that time?

12:31 Speaker 1 Nothing.

12:31 Speaker 3 Nothing.

12:32 Speaker 1 Absolutely nothing. Um, so the selling point for me was that my brother said, "One thing's for sure, if you write to the Rebbe and the Rebbe tells you to go to Israel, Mommy and Daddy won't argue." Okay, that's... It's a done deal.

12:49 Speaker 3 That's your way out.

12:50 Speaker 1 That's my way out. He's a holy man, a religious man, you know. Why shouldn't he tell me to go to Israel? Holy land. I'll explain it, he'll understand, and I'll get what I want. So I said to my brother, "Does the Rebbe get a lot of mail?" So he said, "He gets sacks of mail." That time there was no internet, so you weren't emailing or sending letters online.

13:14 Speaker 3 Sure.

13:14 Speaker 1 If you wanted to write a letter, you sat down and you wrote a letter. So, um, I said, "Well, what sort of mail does he get?" He says, "You know, people write letters on white paper and put it in an envelope, or they write an aerogram and a air letter, um, and they send it. And the Rebbe reads the letters, and he answers them." I thought, "Well, how boring." So I went up to town to Harrods, which you may have heard of. Quite famous.

13:42 Speaker 3 Famous shop, yeah.

13:43 Speaker 1 Yeah. And I bought, um... I think it tells you something about how stupid I was. Um, very heavily scented pink stationery. Bright pink with matching envelopes that were-- had, um, a floral lining so that when you sealed the envelope at the back, there were flowers showing. I thought, "Here you go. Get a sack of mail. Spill it out on your desk. You've got aerograms, white envelopes, and this letter. Which one are you gonna open first? Obviously mine."

14:17 Speaker 3 Hmm.

14:18 Speaker 1 So I sat down, I wrote to the Rebbe. Wrote about a couple of things that I felt showed how intelligent I was. Um, I wrote that when I'd been in Israel after the Six Day War, I was bothered that a number of, a large number of soldiers lost their eyesight, and there were no corneas available for transplant, and I understood that, um, transplants weren't allowed in the Jewish religion, and I felt this was wrong. Um, and then I wrote that, um, I learnt to read Ashkenazi pronunciation, but when I was in Israel or when I was doing anything connected with Israel, it was all Sephardic pronunciation, and which was the right pronunciation. Then I wrote about school and what was going on and what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it, and what I wanted to do when I came back. I wanted to be a teacher, and, uh, I felt Israel would be a very good grounding for me. And I came down the stairs and I said, "I'm going out to post a letter." And my father called me Sandra, which is my name, uh, but he never called me Sandra except when he was angry. And he called me into his study, and he said, "Is that your letter to the Rebbe?" So I said, "Yes." So he said, "I just want to tell you one thing. I'm not telling you not to send it. You can send it. I'm not asking to read it or anything at

15:48 Speaker 1 all. I'm just telling you that make your decision before you go out to post it, what if you write to the Rebbe and if the Rebbe answers you, whatever he says, you will do."

16:02 Speaker 3 Where did your father get that from? I mean, we're talking about someone who's, who's two-- And not even at, at that point, he's not even wearing a beard or a kapota. Like, he, he hasn't-

16:10 Speaker 1 No, nothing at all.

16:11 Speaker 3 I'm saying, like, he, he, he's... Like, where does he get that kind of-

16:14 Speaker 1 I, I would think from Rabbi Sudak, and I think also he was hedging his bets. Like, um, if I think about it now, it was like, "Okay, just don't be such a knucker. You know, you're 18. We told you what we think." And I, I'm ninety-nine percent sure that they discussed the whole situation with the Rebbe.

16:36 Speaker 3 So he knew that you were writing to the Rebbe to try to get permission to go to Israel?

16:40 Speaker 1 Yes.

16:40 Speaker 3 He had a hunch.

16:41 Speaker 1 No, he didn't have a hunch. I told him.

16:42 Speaker 3 Oh, you told them?

16:43 Speaker 1 Yeah. I-

16:44 Speaker 3 Oh, so, so-

16:44 Speaker 1 ...told you, I'm very open. I don't mess about

16:46 Speaker 3 ...so, so he was, he was almost trying to basically convince you out of it.

16:51 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

16:51 Speaker 3 Yeah, convince you out of sending the letter.

16:53 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:54 Speaker 3 Okay.

16:54 Speaker 1 "You won't send a letter. You do what we want. We're your parents. We know best for you."

16:57 Speaker 3 Okay. Okay.

16:57 Speaker 1 You know. "You wouldn't be, you wouldn't be a fool. Send the letter."

17:00 Speaker 3 No, but it's still interesting to me to, like, hear that kind of conversation. You know? A, a home in London that was traditional, not Hasidic. I, I can't imagine you had a picture of the Rebbe on your wall at that point.

17:10 Speaker 1 No.

17:11 Speaker 3 I mean, I don't know.

17:11 Speaker 1 Don't think so, no.

17:12 Speaker 3 I don't even know if every Lubavitch had a picture of the Rebbe on their wall at that point, but you certainly didn't. You never met him, and your father's telling you that if you send a letter-

17:20 Speaker 1 Okay. You've, you've got to understand something. I come from a generation where you do what you're told. Um-

17:25 Speaker 3 But not by a person that you never met before.

17:27 Speaker 1 Okay. So my brother had given me this very good sales line, and I fell for it, and I truly believed, as most teenagers do, that they know better, and therefore, I'll write to the Rebbe, I'll explain the situation. He's an old man sitting in Brooklyn, you know. He's gonna listen. This is a girl who's passionate about going to Israel. Why should he stop me going? You know-

17:53 Speaker 3 Right, but you weren't a generation that did what you, what you were told.

17:56 Speaker 1 Um-

17:56 Speaker 3 You said you were in the '60s. I mean, the '60s, they rebelled against their parents.

17:59 Speaker 1 Okay, but, uh, uh, we weren't the rebelling type.

18:02 Speaker 3 Oh, so you weren't? Okay.

18:03 Speaker 1 I wasn't. I, you know, I, I tell you I was quite a good girl.

18:06 Speaker 3 Okay.

18:06 Speaker 1 I know I may sound like I was a bit naughty, but I was actually quite a good girl. We all were.

18:10 Speaker 3 So in your home, you were-

18:11 Speaker 1 And we-- Yeah, and we had a lot of respect. I went to a school that where you stood up for the teacher when the teacher-

18:16 Speaker 3 Right

18:16 Speaker 1 ... came in, and you sat down, and the, the teachers wore their university gowns. It was all very traditional and very English.

18:24 Speaker 3 Yeah, so parenthetically, maybe just take a step back. This, the whole '60s of America, was that happening here in-

18:31 Speaker 1 Not-

18:31 Speaker 3 ... England as well?

18:31 Speaker 1 ... to such a great degree. It was. Um, we used to go up to town, um, a group of us. We used to go to... There was a folk club just off Oxford Street, and we used to go there, and it was very nice. Boys took their guitars. Everybody sang, sat around and sang, and it was very, very pleasant. Um, on, going on a few years when I was married and we used to have students coming into the house, so I was telling them I used to go to this place, and it was like shock, horror, disbelief. "You went there?" They said, "Do you know that's one of the biggest drug places in London?" And I thought, "Oh, my God. Well, it wasn't when I went there, so..." You know, it-- I think everything came to London a bit late. We're always a bit slower in London.

19:15 Speaker 3 Right.

19:15 Speaker 1 It came a bit later. But, um, no, I wasn't, I wasn't looking to rebel in that way.

19:21 Speaker 3 I see.

19:22 Speaker 1 And, and the rebellion, if you think about it, was quite limited. It was whether I was gonna go to university in Manchester or I was going to go to Yerushalayim. I-- It wasn't massive.

19:30 Speaker 3 Right.

19:30 Speaker 1 I wasn't going off to become an anarchist or-

19:33 Speaker 3 No. Right. You weren't going to India.

19:34 Speaker 1 No, definitely wasn't going to India. Had no interest at all. So that was that, and then I posted the letter, and to be quite honest, I forgot about it because now I'd sent the letter, everything calmed down at home, and nobody was starting with me, and I got on with my life. Um, three weeks later, I came home from school, and my mother opened the door very excited. "You got a letter from the Rebbe." I said, "Oh, that's nice." It never occurred to me that the Rebbe doesn't always answer. You know?

20:05 Speaker 3 Oh.

20:06 Speaker 1 You write to somebody, they're gonna write back.

20:07 Speaker 3 Sure.

20:08 Speaker 1 So I... She said, "Do you want, do you want-- Can I see it?" So I said, "No, it's my letter." I went up to my room, opened the letter. There were three full scaped pieces of paper. I mean, I had no idea how special this was till years later.

20:26 Speaker 3 Right.

20:26 Speaker 1 Um, and-

20:28 Speaker 3 I mean, that's part of the story here, right?

20:29 Speaker 1 Yeah.

20:29 Speaker 3 You, you wrote to someone who you didn't even realize who you were writing to.

20:32 Speaker 1 Yeah, 100%.

20:33 Speaker 3 That's what's so amazing about this story.

20:35 Speaker 1 Yeah. I know, it's amazing. It certainly had a good outcome. Um, and I went upstairs, and the Rebbe had corrected various things that had been typed in his own handwriting. A-again, I had no idea. So I read the letter, and the Rebbe answered all my highly intelligent questions. Then I wrote about my education, and he said, "You write about that last, although it would seem the most relevant to you at the moment." And, um, then he dropped the bombshell. "You say you want to teach, but you don't know that much about Yiddishkeit. Presumably, you want to teach in a Jewish school, so I suggest you go to seminary." Now, seminary wasn't, uh, like, on my radar at all. I didn't know people who went to seminary. I wasn't... I... Not my thing. And then he gave me choices. He said, "You can go to Gateshead," which is in England. Now, Gateshead for me was navy pleated skirts, white tops, very narrow, and that wasn't an option.

21:38 Speaker 3 The opposite dir- the opposite direction to Israel.

21:41 Speaker 1 Oh, totally. Totally. And then he said, "If you're set on going to Israel, um, I would suggest Bais Yaakov in Bnei Brak or in Yerushalayim."

21:51 Speaker 3 Hmm.

21:52 Speaker 1 You've got to understand, my friends were going, the boys were going for y- a, a year in yeshiva. The girls were going on hachshara to kibbutz or whatever. I was not going to Bnei Brak-

22:04 Speaker 3 Bnei Brak

22:04 Speaker 1 ... or to Yerushalayim to be in Bais Yaakov.

22:07 Speaker 3 It's interesting, though, the Rebbe recommended non-Lubavitch seminaries to you also.

22:11 Speaker 1 There weren't that many Lubavitch seminaries.

22:13 Speaker 3 There weren't any?

22:14 Speaker 1 There were some, 'cause the, that was the last option, or Bais Rivkah in Paris.

22:19 Speaker 3 Hmm.

22:20 Speaker 1 And you will be pleased to know that I chose Bais Rivkah in Paris, and the rationale was like this. One, it's Paris, not too far from home. Two, if I don't like sem, the shopping is good. That's it.

22:38 Speaker 3 Fair enough.

22:39 Speaker 1 And I went. I went-

22:40 Speaker 3 Right. Pari- Paris isn't too bad a deal, but, but I, I'm still, I'm still, like, trying to figure out-

22:44 Speaker 1 Okay. So-

22:45 Speaker 3 Why would you-

22:45 Speaker 1 ... I made a deal.

22:47 Speaker 3 Right. With who? With your dad?

22:48 Speaker 1 With my dad. Whatever the Rebbe said, I would do, and I keep my word.

22:55 Speaker 3 So at that age already-

22:56 Speaker 1 You, you-

22:57 Speaker 3 You don't renege

22:57 Speaker 1 ... ask my children. When I say something-

23:00 Speaker 3 Right

23:00 Speaker 1 ... I mean it.

23:01 Speaker 3 Okay.

23:02 Speaker 1 At that-- I'm dead straight.

23:04 Speaker 3 No, I believe you. I'm just trying to understand what-

23:05 Speaker 1 No, so that, that was it

23:06 Speaker 3 ... so you're, that's a personality thing.

23:07 Speaker 1 I made a deal.

23:07 Speaker 3 It's a pers-

23:08 Speaker 1 That's my personality.

23:09 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

23:09 Speaker 1 Made a deal. See, so I had no idea what I was going to. I'd g- went out and bought clothes for lectures and clothes for this and that. Rubbish. Sat in a, in Bais Rivkah in the end, the same building the whole day. Didn't, didn't need anything of those things. But it was the most amazing experience. Changed my life. Had wonderful teachers. They put up with all my garbage. They put up with all my stupid questions, and eventually, I stopped. I stopped fighting and enjoyed it and got a lot out of it, particularly the Hasidism.

23:43 Speaker 3 Hmm. S-so this was the first time that you were learning Hasidism?

23:47 Speaker 1 First time I was learning anything Jewish properly.

23:49 Speaker 3 Wow.

23:50 Speaker 1 I went to Hebrew school.

23:51 Speaker 3 Right.

23:51 Speaker 1 I went on a Sunday, and we went twice during the week.

23:54 Speaker 3 Right.

23:55 Speaker 1 Tuesday and Thursday, straight from school.

23:57 Speaker 3 Right.

23:58 Speaker 1 I got, um, my matric in classical Hebrew from going to Hebrew school.

24:03 Speaker 3 Hmm.

24:04 Speaker 1 I told you, my parents were very education conscious.

24:06 Speaker 3 Right.

24:07 Speaker 1 You know, it has to be an outcome. You have to finish. You have to do what you do.

24:10 Speaker 3 Right.

24:11 Speaker 1 So that was that. I went to sem. Um, had a boyfriend. Um-

24:17 Speaker 3 In sem?

24:18 Speaker 1 No, I had a boyfriend before I went to sem. And, um, I did not know, but my parents had discussed this with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said, "Invite him to the house when she's not there. Get to know him," whatever. And then, um, when I came home from sem in the second year in February, um, he proposed, and I said, "If the Rebbe is maskim." And I, I didn't know what the Rebbe was gonna say 'cause he wasn't a Lubavitcher. And the Rebbe said yes, but I had to get married as soon as I left sem. So I did. I got engaged in sem, and I got married, um, a month and a half after I finished sem.

25:03 Speaker 3 So that boyfriend is a fellow that I met outside?

25:06 Speaker 1 That boyfriend is my husband of 50-something years. Best deal. Best deal Lubavitch ever got as well.

25:13 Speaker 3 Wonderful.

25:13 Speaker 1 He was-- He's from, from birth, he's not a Baalshesiver. He's got-- hasn't got all the hang-ups that I've got, and he's, he's just the rock of my life.

25:24 Speaker 3 Wonderful. Such a beautiful story. But I, I do wanna focus on one thing.

25:28 Speaker 1 Yeah.

25:28 Speaker 3 Because something-- There's a letter that you, that you, that you wrote before you go to seminary, which... or before you wanted to go to Israel, which seems to be more like a ploy to get out, get away from your parents' clutches.

25:41 Speaker 1 Yeah.

25:42 Speaker 3 Two years later, you write another letter about getting married.

25:45 Speaker 1 Oh, I wrote lots. There were in between.

25:47 Speaker 3 Right. I know, but you mentioned these two letters.

25:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.

25:49 Speaker 3 Like, I wanna focus a little bit, what was the difference between the first ti- the first letter that you spoke about and the second letter you spoke about?

25:56 Speaker 1 Okay. Big difference.

25:57 Speaker 3 Right.

25:57 Speaker 1 First of all-

25:58 Speaker 3 Right

25:58 Speaker 1 ... in Sem, I had a teacher whose name was Esther Zislin. I'm not sure whether her name was Zislin or Zimoff, because it was one of these families that had multitudinous names.

26:09 Speaker 3 Right.

26:09 Speaker 1 She was younger than me. She was a Hasidist par excellence, and she became my role model. She became my idol.

26:20 Speaker 3 Hmm.

26:20 Speaker 1 She was so powerful, and what she imbued in us was a love of siches. Now, also, you've got to put this in context. The second year I was in Sem, that Purim, there was the first hookup, international hookup, to hear the Rebbe. I had never heard the Rebbe's voice. I'd seen pictures of the Rebbe. I'd never heard the Rebbe's voice.

26:47 Speaker 3 Hmm.

26:48 Speaker 1 I, I didn't know anything really more than the correspondence that I had and this feeling that I had that he had something unique to give the world, and I wanted to be a part of that journey. Um, so there was this hookup in-- They were taking it in Bromma. Um, there was a man, um, Ben Zion Haknah, alav ha-shalom, who used-- who did the hookups in England, and his younger brother, Yonasan Haknah, was a bachur in Bromma at the time, and he was gonna hook up in Bromma with Ben Zion and then to New York. So we asked permission from our-- the head of our Sem if we could go to hear the hookup. There was gonna be a women's section for the women in Bromma.

27:34 Speaker 3 That wasn't a v- There wasn't TV, right? There was just audio?

27:37 Speaker 1 Oh, TV? You're joking. No, audio.

27:39 Speaker 3 Just audio.

27:40 Speaker 1 Audio.

27:40 Speaker 3 You sat in a room, and you heard.

27:42 Speaker 1 Sat in a room, and you heard.

27:43 Speaker 3 Right.

27:44 Speaker 1 So it was the first time.

27:46 Speaker 3 Right.

27:46 Speaker 1 And the principal of the Sem said, "It's impossible. It can't happen. It's impossible that the Rebbe will sit in New York, and you will be able to hear it in Paris. It's not possible. It can't be done."

28:02 Speaker 3 Hmm.

28:02 Speaker 1 "And you can't go."

28:05 Speaker 3 So you thought you were kind of pulling his leg?

28:07 Speaker 1 No, no. He knew they were gonna have this shittel, and he felt it was a waste. We would, we would lose sleep. It was gonna be two o'clock in the morning-

28:15 Speaker 3 Right

28:15 Speaker 1 ... in Paris, and we'd lose a night's sleep. We wouldn't be able to learn the next day, and it wasn't gonna happen anyway.

28:22 Speaker 3 Right.

28:23 Speaker 1 So four of us climbed over the wall and went. Okay? Um.

28:28 Speaker 3 So you're still rebellious.

28:28 Speaker 1 That was my big rebellion. Yay. Um, we went, and in a way, he was right. I heard the Rebbe for, I think, 30 seconds. The rest of the time was Ben Zion and Yonasan, "Bliv on the line, bliv on the line." And, and that was it. And I came back so elated. I actually heard the Rebbe's voice.

28:48 Speaker 3 There were no tapes. There were-

28:51 Speaker 1 Very little, you know, and certainly not for a girls' seminary. Nothing really came out. I was friendly with a group of girls who'd come from Montreal, who knew-- had been in New York, and a couple of girls from New York, and they had been in New York. They'd been by the Rebbe, and I-- They fed me with information like a Chabad Lubavitch. You're talking about 1969.

29:17 Speaker 3 Right.

29:18 Speaker 1 Lubavitch was very small then still.

29:20 Speaker 3 Sure.

29:21 Speaker 1 Um, and it was all part of the almost mystique of the whole thing. But I was absolutely elated. I'd heard the Rebbe, and it was real, and I could tell my parents I'd heard the Rebbe and everything else. We got into trouble, and we got over it, and that was it. Um, then I came home, and I got married. Um, my husband was still studying. He was a den- he was studying dentistry.

29:47 Speaker 3 What did he think about this whole Lubavitch thing? Uh-

29:49 Speaker 1 Okay. So when we were, when we were due to get-- when we-- he asked me if, if I'd marry him, and I said, "We have to ask the Rebbe," his attitude was almost the same as mine had been two years earlier when I wrote to the Rebbe the first time. "Well, why would the Rebbe say no?"

30:07 Speaker 3 Right.

30:07 Speaker 1 Like, "Why shouldn't we write? Why would the Rebbe say no? I'm a nice guy. You're a nice girl. Why would the Rebbe say no?"

30:14 Speaker 3 Right.

30:15 Speaker 1 So we wrote. We both wrote, and then he, he phoned me. No, he went round to my parents to say he'd got an answer. My parents had also got an answer, and they phoned from home to the seminary. Nobody had cell phones. So the head of the seminary called me down to his office. He said, "You have a phone call from London. Your mother says it's important." So I-- And I knew-- I had a pretty good idea what it was, and I said to him, "Do you mind if I take the call privately?" And he said, "Yes." So he sat in the room And-

31:01 Speaker 3 Yeah, he did mind is what you're saying.

31:02 Speaker 1 He did mind, yeah. So he sat in the room, and my, my mother said, "Mazel tov." Uh, tearful and, "Mazel tov, and you've got an answer," brocha from the Rebbe. Spoke to my father, spoke to my now chassan, and, um, put the phone down. And the seminary principal said to me, "Do I gather you're engaged?" So I said, "It would appear so." So-

31:25 Speaker 3 That, that is the most British engagement story I've ever heard.

31:30 Speaker 1 So he said to me, "Well, I don't want you to tell anybody until you've told my wife," who was, like, the, the, the mother of the seminary.

31:40 Speaker 3 Right.

31:40 Speaker 1 And she'd gone home to cook dinner, and she was gonna come back. So I went back to the class, and I walked in, and my friends s- say, "No, no, no."

31:50 Speaker 3 They also knew something was coming.

31:51 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah. Um-

31:55 Speaker 3 They knew you, they knew you were waiting on this answer.

31:57 Speaker 1 Yeah.

31:57 Speaker 3 Right.

31:57 Speaker 1 So I said, "Yeah," and they all got very excited. And the teacher said, "Have you... Has something happened?" I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Yes, my mother had a baby." So everybody cracked up laughing. All my friends knew exactly what was going on. It's true, she did. She just-- he was just 20 or 22.

32:23 Speaker 3 Huh.

32:24 Speaker 1 So, uh, that was that. And then the seminary, Madame Shami came back, and I told her, and then it became public. Um, had a good party that evening, and then, uh, I finished seminary and I came home.

32:39 Speaker 3 Hmm. Yeah.

32:42 Speaker 1 And that's, that's the beginning of the story.

32:45 Speaker 3 That's the beginning of the story. Yeah. What, what a, what a story in itself. What a story in itself.

32:52 Speaker 1 You know, I, I my mother, um, m- the Rebbe asked my mother in a, in an early Yefes, um, "Did you enjoy the Fabrangen?" And my mother said, "I didn't really understand too much of the sichas, but I loved the singing."

33:17 Speaker 3 Hmm.

33:17 Speaker 1 And the Rebbe smiled. The Rebbe had an incredible relationship with my parents. He treated them like friends.

33:25 Speaker 3 Hmm.

33:27 Speaker 1 And, um, he said to my mother, "I'll know if you enjoy it if you bring me your children." And it was probably about 40 years later, we made a simcha in New York. Don't ask me which one, I can't remember.

33:45 Speaker 3 Hmm.

33:46 Speaker 1 And my parents were there, and my father said, "I think it's time to take you all to the Rebbe." So it was my, me and my kids, and by that time I had some einiklach. And my sister was there for the simcha, and she had her kids, and, uh, yeah, a lot of people. And we, we went to the ohel all together. And my father went in and he said, "I'm fulfilling the promise. I'm bringing you my children," and we all filed into the ohel. And it was one of the, the most hartsig moments of my life.

34:25 Speaker 3 Hmm.

34:26 Speaker 1 I felt my parents had fulfilled the Rebbe's request, and it was, it was just so special. And I think probably for me, the biggest, biggest brocha that I have in all this is that kenena, I have a large family, and they're all Chabad. They're all different, very, very different.

34:50 Speaker 3 Huh.

34:50 Speaker 1 But they're all Chabad, and they're all just as committed to the Rebbe as my husband and I are. And for me, that's the biggest, biggest reward for everything.

35:02 Speaker 3 I actually wanted to ask you about that. Um, such a beautiful story about Batayel. Um, yeah, I just... You know, there's something about it, maybe you can comment on it as well. You know, there's always this talk about before Gimmel Tammuz, after Gimmel Tammuz. Um, and something about when, when you tell a story like that, which is a human story, like, that your, your parents had this conversation with the Rebbe, the Rebbe told them something. When I, when I hear that story, like, that before Gimmel Tammuz, after Gimmel Tammuz thing kind of dissolves for me. I don't know if that... I don't know.

35:43 Speaker 1 Yeah.

35:44 Speaker 3 It's like they came back to, to the Rebbe. It's not, like, 'cause I believe XYZ. No, no, no. Like, I made a promise to this man or, or we had-- I had this conversation with this man, and now I'm bringing my family, and it's as simple as that, right? It just, it just makes sense. As opposed to when we get, when we get into kind of like the spiritual discussions of, like-

36:05 Speaker 1 Okay.

36:06 Speaker 3 Right?

36:06 Speaker 1 I'm not very spiritual.

36:07 Speaker 3 No, I'm just saying that-

36:08 Speaker 1 Uh, so I, I, I don't know. Um, I never believed Gimmel Tammuz would happen.

36:14 Speaker 3 Right.

36:14 Speaker 1 I believed the Rebbe would get better. I had no doubt in my mind that he would, he would get better. Um, when Gimmel Tammuz happened, um, my father was in hospital at the time, and he phoned me and he said, "Somebody just came into my room." They'd been listening to one of the Jewish programs on the radio, and they s- he s- they said, "Oh, your Rebbe died." And my father said to me, "Is it true?" And I didn't know what to say to him. I, I said, "It, it would appear so." I, I didn't know what to say.

36:59 Speaker 3 Right.

36:59 Speaker 1 But we heard, like, in the very early hours of the morning.

37:03 Speaker 3 Right.

37:04 Speaker 1 Um, and then there was the question of how everybody was gonna get on a plane, and there was an amazing man- Amazing in lots of ways. Avrom Weiss, who was a travel agent in London.

37:15 Speaker 3 Right.

37:16 Speaker 1 He did not get on a plane himself until he was sure that everybody who needed a ticket was-- had got a ticket and had gone. And I think there are a lot of people who to this day are very grateful to him. Um-

37:29 Speaker 3 Right. Also, in those days, just to clarify, you couldn't just go on the website and buy a ticket.

37:33 Speaker 1 Oh, no. There's no web. Y-

37:34 Speaker 3 You had to go through a travel agent

37:34 Speaker 1 None of that. You had to go through a travel agent.

37:37 Speaker 3 Right.

37:37 Speaker 1 Um, and my, my son, Yudi, had just turned bar mitzvah.

37:43 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

37:43 Speaker 1 And he wanted to go with Bunim. He didn't have a passport.

37:47 Speaker 3 Right.

37:48 Speaker 1 So I phoned the passport office, and they said in case of an emergency or a bereavement or anything else, um, this is the number to call. So I called. It was about six o'clock in the morning, and I said that my husband's going to New York for... I found it very hard to say for a funeral, but for a funeral. My son wants to go with him. Okay. Is it a family member?

38:14 Speaker 3 Hmm.

38:15 Speaker 1 So I said, "Sort of. It's like a grandfather." He said, "Not another one." He said, "My phone has not stopped. How many grandchildren has this man got?" And that, in a way, put everything in context. You know, how many grandchildren has this man got? Millions.

38:33 Speaker 3 What a beautiful story.

38:36 Speaker 1 Uh, Yudi did not get a passport. He didn't go. He was very upset with us that he didn't go.

38:42 Speaker 3 They wouldn't, they wouldn't issue a passport?

38:44 Speaker 1 No, they wouldn't issue a passport. He said he's-

38:46 Speaker 3 Right

38:47 Speaker 1 ... that was the... I have many calls, and it's only for parents-

38:50 Speaker 3 Right

38:51 Speaker 1 ... or for grandparents, and-

38:53 Speaker 3 Right

38:53 Speaker 1 ... I wasn't prepared to say that he was a grandfather because Baruch Hashem, Yudi's four grandparents were alive, and I wasn't gonna do anything to that. But it was, uh, it was, it was quite amazing. And then in the afternoon, um, the levaya was broadcast. The girls, the little ones, everybody, we listened to this thing, and I just kept closing my eyes and said, "Rebbe, just get up. Just get up. It can't be happening. It can't be true. Just get up."

39:26 Speaker 3 Hmm.

39:27 Speaker 1 And I truly believed there was going to be this hisgelus, and it was all-- it was gonna be Moshiach, but it wasn't. And, um-

39:41 Speaker 3 How, how did, how do you process that now looking back?

39:44 Speaker 1 How do I process it? I didn't know how to process it at the time, but what happened was a number of, um, women who'd become from either through our family or through other ways but I was very close with, were phoning me and saying, "What do I tell my children?"

40:01 Speaker 3 Hmm.

40:02 Speaker 1 And therefore, I, I didn't really have too much time to think. I, I just said, you know, "This is what the Aibishter wants, and we've just got to get on with the game and bring Moshiach. Do what the Rebbe wants us to do. Bring Moshiach. It's what we have to do. We have to work harder. We didn't do enough. It's our fault."

40:23 Speaker 3 You were saying that already then?

40:25 Speaker 1 Yeah.

40:26 Speaker 3 Right away.

40:26 Speaker 1 I, uh-

40:26 Speaker 3 'Cause, 'cause, I mean, this is a question that a lot of people my age have, which is clearly you were not alone in believing what you believed, that Gimmel Tammuz couldn't happen, and that when it did happen, it has to be reversed somehow. There were many people who believed that, right? But as time goes on, you know, the question becomes how did those people recalibrate? Or did they recalibrate? They-- Did they say, "Okay, you know what? Maybe, maybe there's something we didn't know ahead of time." Uh, that-

40:59 Speaker 1 You know what?

40:59 Speaker 3 That's a question, that's a question I-

41:01 Speaker 1 It's-- The whole thing is a question, and I can't answer for anybody else. I just-- It made me want to work harder. It made me want to do more. I didn't-- Obviously, we didn't do enough.

41:16 Speaker 3 Hmm.

41:16 Speaker 1 Obviously, we, we didn't work hard enough. Obviously, we didn't, we, we didn't do what we were supposed to do. Now, there were some, for some people who it's cop-out. That's it. Finished now.

41:29 Speaker 3 You're saying cop-out like, okay, over. I can move on.

41:30 Speaker 1 It's over. I can move on with my life, you know.

41:33 Speaker 3 Right.

41:33 Speaker 1 Whatever.

41:34 Speaker 3 Right.

41:35 Speaker 1 And, um, that w- that wasn't how I felt. I felt we had to do, we had to do more, and we did. We did all sorts of things that I would never have dreamed of doing before then. Um, was it hard? Yes, it was very hard. Um, in a way, the period after the Rebbe's strokes prepared us for... I wasn't in New York. I didn't see the Rebbe come on the balcony. I saw it a few times on hookups. I found it horrific. I-

42:13 Speaker 3 Right

42:13 Speaker 1 And, uh-

42:14 Speaker 3 I imagine most people did

42:15 Speaker 1 ... and, um, whatever. And perhaps rightly or wrongly, I'd stopped writing so much. Um, and-

42:30 Speaker 3 Why is that?

42:32 Speaker 1 Um, uh, the Rebbe's sick, and I'm gonna burden him with my rubbish.

42:37 Speaker 3 Hmm.

42:37 Speaker 1 Like, get real, Chaya. It's, you know, man up. You know what you've got to do. Get on with it.

42:44 Speaker 3 Hmm.

42:45 Speaker 1 The Rebbe gave us-- You know, I'm listening now, Gemma putting out these, this stuff from the Lebanon war, the the Yom Kippur War, everything else. The Rebbe hasn't changed. It, it-- What he's saying is just as relevant now as it was then. It, it's-- He left us everything.

43:04 Speaker 3 Right.

43:04 Speaker 1 The blueprint is there.

43:06 Speaker 3 Hmm.

43:06 Speaker 1 All we've got to do is follow the rules.

43:08 Speaker 3 Hmm.

43:08 Speaker 1 You know, it-- And we're obviously not doing enough. And- And I, and I say this whenever I go out to speak. The Rebbe sent young people on shluch- on shlichus. He didn't send old people. He sent young people. They were-- He knew they were gonna make mistakes. They'd probably put their foot in it. They'd probably do things not the right way or not politically correct or whatever. But that's where the power lies. The power lies in the youth, and you see it. Look at the mobilization of Chabad since Gimmel Tammuz. You know, stand up all those people who went out in the '50s and the '60s. Stand up all those people who went out since Gimmel Tammuz, and the whole hall gets up.

43:52 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

43:53 Speaker 1 It is unbelievable.

43:54 Speaker 3 Mm.

43:55 Speaker 1 Um, and, and I'm so proud that my kids are a part of that.

44:00 Speaker 3 Mm.

44:00 Speaker 1 Just so proud.

44:02 Speaker 3 Mm.

44:02 Speaker 1 And they're in such diverse places. Uh, and I'm just blown away with what they are achieving, and these are kids who never saw the Rebbe.

44:13 Speaker 3 Mm.

44:13 Speaker 1 In a way, they saw the Rebbe more than I did 'cause they see the videos the whole time, but it's, it's not the same.

44:19 Speaker 3 Mm.

44:21 Speaker 1 Um, and I'm in awe of them and their children, and now I'm watching grandchildren going on shlichus, and I'm in awe.

44:30 Speaker 3 Mm. Wow. So I, I wanna, I wanna talk a little bit about that, about the large family. Because, you know, it's beginning to make more and more sense to me because, you know, we're seeing the progression here and the transformation and the, the, the course of life that you have chosen for yourself, uh, or are choosing for yourself. But it's, it's still not inevitable that because you would go to seminary and because you would marry your husband, you would also decide to, to be one of the people who took the Rebbe very literally about having a large family. Right. So when was that-- When did you decide that-

45:10 Speaker 1 We didn't decide.

45:11 Speaker 3 You didn't decide.

45:12 Speaker 1 We're not very good decision-makers.

45:14 Speaker 3 Okay. You never spoke with your husband ahead of time, "We're gonna have a large family"?

45:17 Speaker 1 It-- We just-

45:19 Speaker 3 Just, you have 14 children, right?

45:20 Speaker 1 I have 14 children.

45:24 Speaker 3 That's quite, that's quite a brood.

45:26 Speaker 1 It is. And, uh, you have to understand, I didn't know anybody. I mean, I, I knew Hindi Lu or Malka Cousins, who had large families, but, uh, they were like streets ahead of me. Like, oh, it's not gonna be like that. It never occurred to me. They just kept coming. I, I was very blessed.

45:45 Speaker 3 So you never, you never-

45:46 Speaker 1 You know, I have ch- I have children who struggle with infertility.

45:49 Speaker 3 Right.

45:49 Speaker 1 And, and I, I look back and I think to myself, "You were so blessed. So, so blessed."

45:58 Speaker 3 But that's in retrospect, right?

46:00 Speaker 1 At the time, it never occurred to me. I flew on the Rebbe's coa- coat tails, and especially in 1976, the Rebbe came out with

46:08 Speaker 3 Right.

46:09 Speaker 1 Well then after that, you know, like... And that I had my fourth child then. Well, they knew I was gonna s- I was gonna stop.

46:17 Speaker 3 So, so you and your husband never spoke about having a large family?

46:20 Speaker 1 We never spoke about... I'm a bit naive, you know. We just took it.

46:25 Speaker 3 Okay, but after-

46:25 Speaker 1 We'd have what the Rebbe-- we'd have what the gave us.

46:28 Speaker 3 Right, right, right. But, but after the fourth child, right? I, I have four children, right?

46:33 Speaker 1 Yeah.

46:34 Speaker 3 I have four children, but like a lot of people say, after the third child is when we think, "Wait a second." Like, like, okay, this is, this is getting-- this is becoming a thing. Like, people start reconsidering. You, you never reconsidered or, or like, "Wait a second, this is becoming quite a bit of work"?

46:52 Speaker 1 No. I'll tell you, I'll tell you a cute story.

46:56 Speaker 3 All right.

46:57 Speaker 1 Well, I think it's cute anyway. When I had Levi, who you know.

47:01 Speaker 3 Sure.

47:02 Speaker 1 He's, I think, my number 11. Um, I, I had, um, complications giving birth. I broke two vertebrae in my back.

47:12 Speaker 3 Because of the birth?

47:13 Speaker 1 Yeah. He got stuck.

47:14 Speaker 3 Mm.

47:15 Speaker 1 Typical Levi. Um, he sorted himself out, and he was born, Baruch Hashem. And during the labor, the w- the midwife said to me, "We're having difficulties. You've just got to push and push and push." And I pushed, and I heard this crack, crack.

47:29 Speaker 3 Oh.

47:29 Speaker 1 And I said to her, "What's that?" She said, "Don't worry about that. Just push." Anyway, after I had the baby, I was in the most incredible amount of pain. Couldn't lift the baby. Couldn't do anything. And I went back to the hospital, and the hospital said, "Well, we've lost your notes of the delivery."

47:49 Speaker 3 This sounds like malpractice.

47:51 Speaker 1 It probably was. Um, we have a National Health Service in this country.

47:55 Speaker 3 Right. This isn't the States.

47:56 Speaker 1 Yeah. So-

47:57 Speaker 3 You would have a mu- you would have a, you would have a-

47:59 Speaker 1 I'd have had a lawyer on the case immediately.

48:01 Speaker 3 Right.

48:01 Speaker 1 But I-- all I had was a backache. So, um, I, I really was not in a good way and, um, I really wasn't feeling good, and I needed a lot of help, and I couldn't, I couldn't sit. I could stand, and I could lie down. I couldn't sit. And things were challenging. And we had a lot of mitzvah things going on. That was our thing, mitzvah. And, um, I-- You know, sometimes when it's you, you get embroiled, and you don't think of all the things you would tell other people to do. So eventually, Levi was born. I am sorry, I don't remember exactly, but sort of early summertime, Sivan, I think. And then it got to Erev Rosh Hashanah, and I was still in a really bad way. And, um, we wrote to the Rebbe, and we got an answer, check your mezuzahs. So we asked somebody, you know, what do you do? Just take them all down, take them down one at a time. So the person said, "Take them all down, put them all in a separate envelope. Write on the envelope which room they come from, and take them to the sofer and get them checked." And we did. And the mezuzah on the kitchen door, which was where I spent most of my life, the words

49:31 Speaker 3 Hmm.

49:32 Speaker 1 And the sofer said to Bnaim, "Do you want me to fix it, or will you get a new mezuzah?" So my, my very kind husband said, "Let's get a new mezuzah. Let's not take any chances." And at the same time, I had made an appointment to go to, um, the National Orthopedic Hospital, and they did an X-ray of my back, and he said, "Well, of course you've got back pain. You've broken two vertebrae, and they haven't healed. They've healed, but they haven't healed straight."

50:03 Speaker 3 You didn't know that you had broken it at that point?

50:05 Speaker 1 No, I didn't know. I just knew I had trouble with my back.

50:08 Speaker 3 Oh, so they never even diagnosed you.

50:09 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no.

50:10 Speaker 3 You know now that you've broken it.

50:11 Speaker 1 I know now.

50:11 Speaker 3 'Cause you said you knew.

50:12 Speaker 1 Yeah.

50:12 Speaker 3 Okay.

50:13 Speaker 1 So, um, they said to me, "You've broken two vertebrae in your back, and the prognosis is your spine will-- you'll have a prolapse of the spine, and you should be in a wheelchair within six months."

50:27 Speaker 3 For the rest of your life?

50:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. So that's not a very good prognosis.

50:32 Speaker 3 Mm-mm.

50:32 Speaker 1 So I wrote to the Rebbe, and we changed the mezuzah, and Baruch Hashem, I got better. And-

50:40 Speaker 3 The Rebbe answered you this time?

50:42 Speaker 1 No, didn't answer. Didn't need to.

50:45 Speaker 3 Mm.

50:45 Speaker 1 Didn't need to. I got better. I, I have a weakness in my back. If I get stressed, my back goes.

50:53 Speaker 3 Still from that?

50:53 Speaker 1 Still from that.

50:54 Speaker 3 Yeah.

50:55 Speaker 1 And, um, you know, it, it's definitely a problem, but I had three more children after that.

51:02 Speaker 3 Right.

51:02 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem. So...

51:06 Speaker 3 But, but I guess what I'm asking about having a large family, you know, it's, it's one of those things where-- I mean, first of all, I, I feel it's, like, a very personal thing. It's very, it's very hard-

51:15 Speaker 1 I wouldn't tell anybody else to do it.

51:17 Speaker 3 Right.

51:17 Speaker 1 And anybody who says to me, "Oh, 14 children." I say, "Don't worry, it's not catching." "You can still talk to me. It's not catching." "Your own decisions." But it's, um... No, it-- But, uh, look, all I can tell you is, uh, they weren't all straightforward, and a lot of them had their challenges on the way, and I always say, "I have all the T-shirts. You wanna come round, see my cupboard? I have T-shirts for everything." T-shirts for learning disabilities, T-shirts for struggles with lots of different things. And Baruch Hashem, have a Rebbe, have a Nebishte, and it-- they're all-- they straighten themselves out.

51:59 Speaker 3 Right.

52:00 Speaker 1 And, and one of my children said to me a couple of years ago, "The one thing I think we all thank you for is giving us the Rebbe." And for me, that was such a beautiful thing for her to say because it, it's what sustained us all.

52:19 Speaker 3 How, how do you think-- What does it mean to give your children the Rebbe, especially, like you said, a lot of your children, um, were born later, so they didn't, they didn't meet the Rebbe in person. What does it mean to give them the Rebbe? 'Cause what, what's striking to me about the relationship that you had with the Rebbe growing up and your parents is that it was a very personal human decision. You weren't born into a group of people who have a Rebbe. You're this very, uh-- Your parents at least are the, the quintessential British, traditional British-

52:53 Speaker 1 100%

52:53 Speaker 3 ... family.

52:54 Speaker 1 The Queen.

52:55 Speaker 3 The Queen. Stiff upper lip.

52:57 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

52:58 Speaker 3 Very, very, you know, your grades and, and, you know, do, do what you need to do. Um, and, and, and, and they, on their own terms, they decided that they wanted to bring the Rebbe into their lives and, and align themselves with the Rebbe's vision, and it seems like you also did that in your own way. Right? So it's a very personal decision. Then, you know, your kids are born into already a Lubavitch community, right? But at the same time-- or on the other hand, by the time they're growing up, they're, they, they don't have that accessibility. Either the, either they were too young, or they were born, or they grew up after Rebbe passed away. They don't have that same opportunity to write a letter on pink stationery and get an answer. Right? Or, or hear a chassid or any of these things that you're talking about. So what does it mean to you to give your children, and maybe even your grandchildren, the Rebbe? What does that mean?

53:49 Speaker 1 It means that this is the person who gives you a focus on your life. This is the person who gives you a direction in which to go. If you don't, if you're not sure what you should be doing, this is the person who will guide you. Um, and they've all, they've all taken it on board in very different ways.

54:19 Speaker 3 Mm.

54:20 Speaker 1 Um, but I think it's, I think it's something which is central. Um, I, like, when I hear kids say, "I wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe told me to do this and this," now I know they've written into the Igris. They've read the letter, or they've got somebody to read the letter for them, or they've written into an English Igris. And, and they get, they get amazing, amazing, amazing answers. Um, mind-blowing situations. I will probably get this, this story a bit wrong, and I'm not gonna mention the name, but I have a grandchild, several. I have a grandchild who was on a shidduch. He's very close with one of his cousins. And it was coming up to the summer, and he was going away, actually to one of my kids' on schlephes for the summer. And the shidduch was, like, going to sort itself out over the summer months. So his cousin phoned him and said, "I just had a very interesting conversation with your bro- your younger brother. He said he, he's not sure about camp. He's not sure whether he should go home to England to do camp or whether he should stay and do camp in America, um, because he's pretty sure his sister's gonna get engaged. So- His cousin says, "What about your brother?" "Ah, nothing to do with him. Nah, he's not interested in getting married. I'm pretty sure my sister's gonna get engaged and, you know, if she's gonna get engaged and she's gonna get-- come to the

56:14 Speaker 1 Ohel, and she's gonna be in America, I'll stay in America to do camp and, um, then other- otherwise I'll be in the wrong place at the wrong time." So he-- so his older cousin said to him, "Why don't you ask the Rebbe what to do?" So he wrote into the IGRAS, and the answer he got was, and now I, I don't remember exactly, but something along the lines of, um, "You should stay in America so that you'll be in the right place for the simcha." So, um, he said, "See? Told you. My sister's gonna get engaged. I'm gonna stay in America." So his older cousin phones the boy who was actually on the shlichut and said, "I think you got an answer." So I don't know about these things, but the boys do. There's a-- You can go on an app and you can... He said, "Do you know what, what the answer was?" "Yeah, I can give you the page number and the letter and everything else." Went on the la- app, and on the, the app it gives you a-- you can see a copy of the actual letter, and it says at the bottom, the Rebbe's written in, "Brother. Your brother's getting engaged." But it wasn't in the IGRAS like that because it had been written in the Rebbe's handwriting on the letter. So he was in my daughter's Chabad house in Mexico, in Puerto Vallarta, and-

57:48 Speaker 3 Oh, is that, uh, Schneur?

57:50 Speaker 1 Yes, Schneur House.

57:50 Speaker 3 I know him too.

57:52 Speaker 1 Well, there you go.

57:52 Speaker 3 Yeah.

57:53 Speaker 1 Um, and he's obviously very excited. He's just almost got an answer. So he phones his prospective kallah, and she said, "Well, you know, what should we do?" So they said, "Look, we arranged a date when both the parents can come in, both-

58:10 Speaker 3 So they'd al- they'd already decided to get engaged.

58:11 Speaker 1 They'd already decided, but they said, "Maybe we should go to the Ohel." "No, we've arranged a date where both the parents, both the parents were on shlichus. Had to be a suitable time for both of them to come in. So let, let's hold on for them. But, uh, you should know we got an answer." So, um, and then what do you do? So he said he switched on the music in the Chabad house. It was early hours of the morning. Everybody had gone home, and he starts dancing around the Chabad house like a lunatic.

58:42 Speaker 3 This chassan.

58:43 Speaker 1 This chassan.

58:44 Speaker 3 Future chassan.

58:44 Speaker 1 Yeah. And as he's dancing around, he gets near to where they've got their kosher shop, and he smells burning, and he looks, and he sees that there's an electrical short, and there's flames coming out from the wall.

59:00 Speaker 3 Huh.

59:01 Speaker 1 So, like, if I run back to where Schneur and Mushki live, it's gonna take me two minutes to get there, but I don't know what's gonna happen. So he started looking around for a fire extinguisher. Found one in the kitchen. By the time he came back, there was smoke everywhere, so he sprayed the thing and pulled-- Eventually, when it-- he got it, he pulled the plug out, and then he went back to get Schneur and Mushki, and Schneur came back. If he wouldn't have been in the Chabad house, the whole thing could have burnt down.

59:31 Speaker 3 Wow.

59:31 Speaker 1 It was the middle of the night. Nobody would have known.

59:34 Speaker 3 Mm.

59:35 Speaker 1 Um, so Hashgacha Protis. He got-- He was up. He got his answer. He saved the Chabad house. I just think it's the most amazing story, and I believe the Rebbe was looking after Schneur and Mushki. He got his answer, but the Rebbe was looking after them. And I, you know, nothing you will say will convince me that the Rebbe is not looking out for each and every one of us all the time. I see miracles every day.

1:00:08 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:00:08 Speaker 1 I, I run th- the center here, the Jewish Family Center.

1:00:12 Speaker 3 Yeah.

1:00:12 Speaker 1 It's not a Chabad house, and I'm not a shlucha, my husband's not a shliach, and we never have been. And I see miracles here, like, how am I gonna pay wages this month? And then suddenly something happens. Uh, what's gonna happen with such and such a family? And something happens. I, I see miracles every day. I-- When I write to the Rebbe, the first thing I always write is, "Thank you very much. Please let the brachos continue." And I, I just see it. But like the Rebbe used to say, "Open your eyes." You have to want to see it.

1:00:48 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:00:48 Speaker 1 If you don't want to see it, well, you know, it's like the guy was r- driving around looking for a parking place, and he says, "God, if you send me a parking place, I won't be late for the meeting-

1:00:57 Speaker 3 Right

1:00:57 Speaker 1 ... um, I'll do this, that, or the other," and then somebody pulls out.

1:01:00 Speaker 3 Sure.

1:01:00 Speaker 1 He says, "Okay, God, forget it. I found a parking place." You know?

1:01:03 Speaker 3 Right.

1:01:04 Speaker 1 If you wanna see it, you'll see it. If you don't wanna see it, you won't see it.

1:01:08 Speaker 3 You just said a very interesting line. It wasn't-- It was kind of a throwaway line, but it's-

1:01:12 Speaker 1 It wasn't a throwaway line.

1:01:13 Speaker 3 No, no, I'm saying it, it's something that I paid attention to because I've had this conversation with many people. You said something that like, I have this organization which I wanna ask you a little bit about, but you said, "It's not a shlichas. We're not-- I'm not a shliach. My husband's not a shliach."

1:01:29 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:01:29 Speaker 3 I mean, your husband was a dentist until a couple years ago-

1:01:31 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:01:31 Speaker 3 ... so I suppose that's more obvious, but you've been involved in Hafatza and these kind of activities for many years, and yet you are very clear that you're not a sh- a, a shlucha, let's say, you're not a shlichas.

1:01:43 Speaker 1 Well, let's just say that's my English, that's my English breeding. You are a shliach if you are designated a shliach by the Hanhalah. If you're not, you're not.

1:01:54 Speaker 3 I-- So I agree with that. I can't, I can't-

1:01:56 Speaker 1 Okay

1:01:56 Speaker 3 ... I, I can't ag-

1:01:57 Speaker 1 And we never were

1:01:58 Speaker 3 I ca- So I can't agree with that more. Like, personally, people say, "Oh, you know, this podcast that you're doing is a shlichas." And I'm like, "No, it's not." Like- I, I grew up on shlichus with my parents. I know what shlichus looks like, like official shlichus looks like. I know both how it's defined. I also know what kind of demands it makes. This isn't that. It may be a nice thing. Maybe people are be- I hope people are benefiting from it, but it doesn't make it-

1:02:23 Speaker 1 I'm sure they are

1:02:23 Speaker 3 ... but it doesn't make it-- I ap- thank you, but it doesn't, doesn't make it into shlichus, right?

1:02:27 Speaker 1 No, I agree with you.

1:02:28 Speaker 3 Uh, maybe that's 'cause I grew up in a British colony of Hong Kong.

1:02:31 Speaker 1 Could be. I take no cr- I take no credit for that.

1:02:34 Speaker 3 Uh, no, not you, but you know, the, Her Majes- or His Majesty.

1:02:37 Speaker 1 Mm.

1:02:37 Speaker 3 But, um, no, I, I, I think it's a very interesting thing because some people say, "Well, every is a shliach," or, "Every Lubavitch is a shliach." And I think it's, it's-- I, I resonate with that so much where it's like, um, yes, there is a element of shlichus in what I do, and we're all on shlichus from the Abishter. But when we say we're shliach, that means that we were sent by the Rebbe, but it's under a formal kind of designation. And what, what to me is, like, important about that is that, like, we, we don't need to necessarily quibble over the titles in order to do something that's meaningful, right? Like-

1:03:16 Speaker 1 Okay

1:03:16 Speaker 3 ... you, right, you see what I'm saying? Like-

1:03:17 Speaker 1 Yeah, I understand that, and I hear what you're saying. I think the time when it hit me the hardest was when the Rebbe went to the Ohel the day he had his stroke. They said he cleared his desk, and he left the three volumes of Sefer Shlachim-

1:03:33 Speaker 3 Right

1:03:33 Speaker 1 ... on his desk.

1:03:34 Speaker 3 Right.

1:03:36 Speaker 1 And we weren't in it.

1:03:37 Speaker 3 Oh, wow.

1:03:37 Speaker 1 And that-- I was like, "The Rebbe's my life." And that hurt, okay? That, I think, was the only time. Or when I've gone to the Kinus, and I've gone as a guest.

1:03:54 Speaker 3 Or a parent.

1:03:56 Speaker 1 Well, I've gone as a mother of shlichim.

1:03:57 Speaker 3 Right.

1:03:58 Speaker 1 So, um, I think that's, I found a bit hurtful. But the most hurtful thing was when one of the organizers of the Kinus for Balabastion who come in, or the ladies who come in, says to me, "Why don't you come to that Kinus? You'd get so much from it." And I thought, "50 years ago, I could have come to that."

1:04:20 Speaker 3 Right.

1:04:20 Speaker 1 If you're still thinking of me in that light, I've missed the boat.

1:04:24 Speaker 3 Or maybe they've missed the boat. That's all I was saying.

1:04:26 Speaker 1 I, I don't know. I was-

1:04:27 Speaker 3 Maybe they've missed the boat

1:04:28 Speaker 1 ... that, I was like, "Oh my gosh, really?"

1:04:30 Speaker 3 So, so, so just, so give a bit of background, though, 'cause I think we skipped something. You, you were involved-- 'cause we, we spoke about how you came to Lubavitch, how you had 14 kids. People would assume, okay, that's all you were doing, right? 14 kids is, is more than enough to fill a few lifetimes, let alone one, and yet you were also doing some other things, right?

1:04:50 Speaker 1 Okay. So let-- I'll take you back. Um, when we-- My husband taught Hebrew school. We both did. It was a good way to make extra money. Like, lots of older kids taught Hebrew school on Sunday morning 'cause you got paid to do it and didn't have to do too much preparation, and, uh, it was good.

1:05:10 Speaker 3 This was under the auspices of Lubavitch?

1:05:12 Speaker 1 No, no, no. The United Synagogue.

1:05:15 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:05:15 Speaker 1 Something called the London Board of Jewish Education. Um, and my husband was in, um... was teaching in a, a, um, a Hebrew school called-- in an area called Southgate. Uh, also very, very large Jewish population. Most of the kids went to gosher schools, and therefore they went to Hebrew school on Sunday morning. In England, that's durka, you go, and then your parents have done their bit for Jewish education for you. You go until you're 13. You have your bar mitzvah, which is usually more bar than mitzvah, and then you leave. You're, you're Jewish.

1:05:53 Speaker 3 Sounds like America.

1:05:54 Speaker 1 Okay. So that was-- So we both taught Hebrew school. And in the Hebrew school that my husband taught at, they had a problem that the kids were coming in at five, leaving at 13, and they couldn't read Hebrew. So some of the teachers sat down, and they worked out this scheme. I think my husband was one of the prime movers. They made, like, a reading diagnostic. Um, it looked like a reading chart. There was, like, big letters at the top, and as the words got harder, they, the letters got smaller. And they decided they were gonna test all the kids in the Hebrew classes, and then they were gonna split them not by age but by ability for half an hour every Sunday morning, and they were gonna concentrate on getting the reading better. So my father was due to go to the Rebbe. Um, we weren't married yet, and my father was due to go to the Rebbe, and he said to Bunim, "Do you want me to take the reading diagnostic to show the Rebbe?"

1:06:54 Speaker 3 I, I don't think you said your father's name yet. This is Mr. Rader, right?

1:06:57 Speaker 1 Ben Zion Rader. So Bunim said, "Yeah, sure. Why not?" So Daddy took it, and the Rebbe actually changed one of the words. He said, "This word does not have a nice connotation. I suggest you use such and such a word." Like, the vowel combination would be the same, but change that word. So came back. "Okay, fine." So nothing actually came of it. The-- It was too many kids to test, and then teachers weren't there on a Sunday morning. The whole thing fell to pieces. Never actually happened. We'd been married for three months, and we were going to go to New York. We-- Bunim had holidays from, um, college. It was the end of the year. Um, I had holidays from school. It was the end of the year. So we dec- we had decided that we were gonna go to New York. This was the time we were gonna go, and we were gonna see the Rebbe. So, um-

1:07:55 Speaker 3 And this is the first time as a couple-

1:07:57 Speaker 1 This is the first time. The first time ever. Neither of us had been to the Rebbe before that.

1:08:01 Speaker 3 Wow. Oh, wow. Yeah.

1:08:02 Speaker 1 So we've been married for three months. We were gonna go to the Rebbe. So they tell you that your first yechidas is, like, what sets the pattern for the rest of your life. So- For my husband, it certainly did. For me, I did not live up to expectations. Um, so we went in. The Rebbe read out sefer. It was very, very short. I was pregnant. Surprised. I was pregnant, and the Rebbe gave us a bracha, and then one of us for a bracha for his studies, and we were starting to do Shabbos groups in our house. And the Rebbe said to us, we, we said, "Should we call it Chabad, or should we call it Lubavitch?" And the Rebbe said, "If using my name will stop people coming, don't call it Chabad."

1:08:47 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:08:48 Speaker 1 So-- And then the Rebbe asked Bunim, "What happened with your reading diagnostic?"

1:08:54 Speaker 3 Mm.

1:08:54 Speaker 1 And Bunim's like, "Whoa, where did that come from?" So he s- he explained to the Rebbe that nothing ever happened, and he explained why. And the Rebbe said... And these are the Rebbe's exact words, "You should blaze the trails of Yiddishkeit with Alef Beis." I mean, um, a less Rebbischer expression, "Blaze the trails of Yiddishkeit with Alef Beis." And then he went on to say, "And if ever, if you should, if you should ever produce a book to teach people Alef Beis," and he laid down the guidelines, "You must do it using komatz aleph, because that affects the emunah of the child."

1:09:37 Speaker 3 Uh, explain a bit, uh, what that means. That means that there's a letter and a vowel separate, right?

1:09:41 Speaker 1 A letter and a vowel separately. You teach the names of the letters-

1:09:43 Speaker 3 Yeah

1:09:43 Speaker 1 ... the letter... names of the vowels, and then you put them together.

1:09:46 Speaker 3 Right.

1:09:47 Speaker 1 It's a Hasidisha way of teaching. It certainly wasn't the way they were teaching in Hebrew 'cause it's in Hebrew classes.

1:09:51 Speaker 3 In other words, shape before sounds.

1:09:53 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:09:54 Speaker 3 You need to know the shape-

1:09:55 Speaker 1 It wasn't phonetics. It-- They were teaching Hebrew with phonetics.

1:09:58 Speaker 3 Right. You need shapes before you have sounds.

1:10:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. So, um, that, and you shouldn't have pictures of boys and girls on the same page.

1:10:07 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

1:10:07 Speaker 1 And no treif animals. It was years before the Rebbe spoke about treif animals in the sefer. Years and years and years. And we, like, looked at each other. He's a dental student. We're not into book production.

1:10:21 Speaker 3 Right.

1:10:21 Speaker 1 You know? Like, okay, fine. So we came out of Yechidas. We wrote it all down and got on with our lives. But Bunim didn't. He spoke to Rabbi Sudak. Sudak told him about Mivhol Hakeriah, which is probably the most boring book you've ever seen, and but it teaches to read with komatz aleph. Um, Bunim took it on as his thing from then onwards to teach adults or children or whatever, anybody who needed to learn Hebrew. He made it known that he would teach them to read, and he has done that. I, I don't know how many hundreds, if not thousands of people he's taught over the last fifty years, and he now has a website, Zoom into Hebrew Reading, and he teaches people all, all over the world on Zoom. So 10 years later, in the Jewish Chronicle, um, there was a tiny little piece that said the head of the London board, Michael Cohen, somebody we knew, um, eh, they're very, very worried that kids are coming into cheder not able to read and leaving not able to read, and if anybody's got any bright ideas, solutions, um, come and put them forward. So I said to Bunim, "This is your chance. Let's make a book. The Rebbe gave us all the guidelines. Let's make a book." So he made an appointment. He went to see Michael Cohen, and Michael Cohen did the typical English thing. "We'll make a committee."

1:11:54 Speaker 3 Hmm.

1:11:56 Speaker 1 So he said-

1:11:56 Speaker 3 Sounds pretty Lubavitch too, by the way.

1:11:59 Speaker 1 "I'll bring some people, and you bring some Lubavitchers, and, um, we'll make a committee, and we'll decide on a book." So we made-- They had the meeting. It was in our house around our dining room table. And the people he brought, I would say, were not exactly good friends of Lubavitch. Um, we had Aron and Malka Cousins, who were the head-headmaster and headmistress of the girls' school and boys' school, and a couple of other people. So, um, they had all the Hebrew reading books out on the table, and they decided that none of them were fit for purpose. So they're gonna make a new book. So okay, fine. So h- how is it going to be structured? So Bunim said, "I think it's very, very important it's structured with komatz aleph." He said, "If any children need help with their emunah and bitachon, then it must be the kids who come to Hebrew school. And if this is a way of strengthening their emunah and bitachon, it would be a great thing to do." So what do you do at a committee? Take a vote. So they voted who didn't think it was a good idea, and all the not Lubavitchers put up their hand. And then they said, "Who do you think it is good-- Who does think it's a good idea?" And all the Lubavitchers put up their hands. And then the most virulent anti-Lubavitcher pointed to the picture of the Rebbe in our dining room and said, "And I suppose you're going

1:13:26 Speaker 1 to ask him." And Michael counted his hand in, so we won. So-

1:13:34 Speaker 3 Again, the most British story ever.

1:13:37 Speaker 1 Okay. So-

1:13:38 Speaker 3 But, but, but one, one second. Did the Rebbe explain... 'Cause I have a fascination with the letters of Alef Beis. Did the Rebbe explain why komatz aleph adds emunah? Or is it just like a thing that-

1:13:48 Speaker 1 You, you'd have to-

1:13:49 Speaker 3 ... we need emunah for that itself

1:13:49 Speaker 1 ... speak to my husband. This is his thing.

1:13:51 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:13:51 Speaker 1 You have to discuss it with him.

1:13:52 Speaker 3 Okay.

1:13:52 Speaker 1 It's not my thing.

1:13:53 Speaker 3 But he didn't explain that at Yechidas?

1:13:55 Speaker 1 No, not at all. It was a very short Yechidas.

1:13:57 Speaker 3 Right.

1:13:58 Speaker 1 You know, my parents had Yechidas that went on for hours and hours and hours. We weren't like that. We went in, we were like , and we went out.

1:14:05 Speaker 3 Right.

1:14:06 Speaker 1 Um-

1:14:06 Speaker 3 I mean, that's, that's in general such a fascinating development in Lubavitch, right? Like, part of it was just a matter of time. The Yechidas got shorter as more and more people wanted to get in.

1:14:15 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:14:15 Speaker 3 But part of it was also that your parents came in as, uh, maybe they even sat down at Yechidas.

1:14:23 Speaker 1 Oh, they did sit down.

1:14:24 Speaker 3 Right.

1:14:24 Speaker 1 Certainly.

1:14:24 Speaker 3 Right.

1:14:24 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said to my mother, "Please sit down," and my mother sat down.

1:14:27 Speaker 3 Of course. Of course, right? And then, like- ... there are children who are already... You know, it seems like you're already a Lub- full-blown Lubavitcher at that point. You'd gone to seminary.

1:14:36 Speaker 1 We were getting there, yeah.

1:14:36 Speaker 3 Remember, you had gone to seminary for two years. You had been taught the etiquette that you do not sit down at Yechidas.

1:14:41 Speaker 1 Definitely not.

1:14:41 Speaker 3 Right. And suddenly, the Yechidas gets so much stiffer, right? A-and it gets so much more, um... Maybe the, maybe the word stiff is inappropriate, but it certainly gets more-

1:14:51 Speaker 1 No, it, there's a-

1:14:52 Speaker 3 ... more formal

1:14:52 Speaker 1 ... there's a euro. There's-

1:14:54 Speaker 3 Right

1:14:54 Speaker 1 ... there's a, a, an awe. You know who you're standing in front of. My, my parents didn't have that relationship. They, they, they certainly understood who the Rebbe was, and they did incredible things for the Rebbe. They produced books for the Rebbe and-

1:15:10 Speaker 3 Right

1:15:10 Speaker 1 ... all sorts of things. But it was a totally different relationship. If the Rebbe came and my mother was standing outside 770, the Rebbe would doff his hat to my mother. Right. Like s- And my mother would say, "He's such a gentleman." You know, uh- But, but, but- Have you seen his nails? They are so beautifully manicured. Now, one thing I'm sure of, the Rebbe never had a manicure in his life. Right. But my mother noticed these things. Right. Are, aren't-- Are you a little bit jealous or aren't you a little bit jealous- Yes, totally ... of, of your, of your parents'- Totally ... kind of- Totally ... formality? Totally. All I wanted was a smile from the Rebbe. Never got one. The Rebbe always told me, "Work harder. Do more. You're not doing enough. Do more. Do more. Do more." And never smiled. Never. Never, never, never. And everybody said to me, "You should take it as a compliment. It means you're a proper Hasid." No, I wanted a smile. Right. I was desperate for a smile. Yeah. Never got one. Yeah. I mean, it, the... I mean- My mother would tell you, "Well, you obviously didn't deserve it." So there you go. That's not nice of her. She-- 'Cause that's not fair. Well- That's not fair. No, because it, it's, it's, it's, like, I don't know what the word is-- I don't know what the right word for it is, but it's, it's something that, like, I think a, a lot of Lubavitchers

1:16:25 Speaker 1 deal with. Maybe today it's a whole different story. We're talking about, you know, that many people would love to have what you had. But, but it's just, like, there was a Rebbe who... There, there were people who got to know the Rebbe on a very personal level. Okay. I- And- I, I believe the Rebbe was a total pragmatist. Right. And he knew who he was dealing with. I see. He knew what people needed. I mean, if you look at the videos of him with different Balabustim and his whole interchange with them, so personal- Right ... and so to the point. And I've got a picture of my father, probably the last time he went through, went past dollars by the Rebbe, and he is already... The relaxation had gone. Very strict, very stern. He's facing the Rebbe, and that was my... That's, that, that was my gift. The Re-- He started to walk away, and the Rebbe called him back and said, "This dollar is for your daughter, who I understand does more and more." Oh. That was my gift. So at that point, your father had already become more st- more, like, formal? He knew, yeah. More of a Hasid. Yeah. Okay. Is it- And also- Is it- Yeah, business and dollars are two very different things ... of course. But isn't, isn't there... I mean, isn't there something sad, I would say is the word that I'm thinking of. Isn't there something sad about how- Mm-hmm ... 'cause, like, well, you just said

1:17:45 Speaker 1 you, you wish you had gotten a smile. Isn't there something, like- No, I don't think so. I, I, I have had rows with my parents. Um, my mother used to write to the Rebbe, "Dear Rebbe Shnaerson." Okay. And I used to say to her, "I don't get it. If you have to send a letter to Buckingham Palace," which she had done on occasion for different things, said, "You phone them up, and you ask them what the protocol is, and you write in the way that's the right way to write to the palace. There's a formula for writing the, to the Rebbe. Right ... Right ... whatever you're gonna put, but there's a formula. Right, right. Yeah. She said, "Well, that's not my relationship with the Rebbe." And it wasn't. Okay? And I couldn't get it. But don't you wish- If you have that relationship with the Queen, why can't you have it for the Rebbe? No. That wasn't how she saw the Rebbe. Everybody perceives the Rebbe in such a different way. So what would happen, what would happen if one of your children wanted to have the relationship that your parents had with the Rebbe? It's a bit late now. No. Well, obviously, uh, no, obviously in, like, in, in, in the- I think the, I think- But you see what I'm saying? If they wanted to have a more informal- Okay. And I think that if the Rebbe knew that's what they needed, then they would have had it. Mm-hmm. How many stories

1:19:00 Speaker 1 came out after Gimel Tammuz of the Rebbe sitting down on a bench with the kids on Kingston Avenue and speaking to them about space book as, um, science fiction? Right. And the, the person never even knew it was the Rebbe. The Rebbe knew what people needed. He underst-- Nobody, I, I mean, this is a stupid thing to say. Nobody understood people better than the Rebbe. And I, I think that if the Rebbe felt that's what somebody needed, that's what they got. So you don't think you needed a smile if you didn't get one? He knew it wasn't gonna make a difference, or maybe he felt he'd get more out of me if he didn't smile, so I'd go away and try harder. Okay. Fair enough. It's, uh, you know, it's the way it is. You, you said earlier that you feel like you didn't live up to the Yechidus. Why do you say that? Because the Rebbe said to me in my Yechidus, uh, in that Yechidus, he said to me, "You were in France for two years." And I said, "Yes." And he said, "Do you use your French?" And I said, "No." And he said, "There's nobody to Makarov who needs you to speak to them in French." And I shrugged. And I, over the years, I've never used my French. Mm. But, um, but you've done quite a bit, haven't you? Okay. I mean, you, you, you started talking- I didn't do that ... you started talking about the Aleph Beis with

1:20:26 Speaker 1 your husband, but you were also-- You were telling me earlier that you were doing a Moshiachim and then Tzvas Hashem. Okay. So what happened was in 1973, which is the year of the Yom Kippur War... Are we all right for time? Um, we should be. I mean, I only see how mu- how long we've been going. Okay. Um, in 1973, before the Yom Kippur War, um, the Rebbe, as you know, was coughing the whole time at PL in Viyanki and he said to Zais and getting children, gathering children together long before Tzvas Hashem. No therapists came. Right. Gathering children together Shmuel Lou was in New York that Shavuos, and when he was standing outside where the lift is, the Rebbe went past, and people who were leaving would stand there, and the Rebbe would say or whatever. And he turned to Shmuel, and he said, "What are you doing with children in England during the summer holidays?" Shmuel at that time was, um, student counselor, um, in England, and he, like, looked at the Rebbe. He didn't say anything, and he thought, "The Rebbe mistook me for someone else," which, um, he said afterwards on the plane coming home, he realized was not a sensible thing to think. Um, so he started to think, and he remembered when he was a child and he wasn't well, um, an aunt or a cousin bought him a book called 365, and there was a puzzle for each day of the summer holi-- uh, for each day of

1:22:02 Speaker 1 the year. And this kept him busy for hours and hours and hours doing these puzzles. So he came back, and he spoke to Hindi, and he said, "I think if we put together a puzzle book, so six days of puzzles, Shabbos would be a story. The Friday page would be, um, about something to do with Shabbos." Mm. 1973, there's Mivtztav fill-in, not much else. Okay? Right. So, um, it certainly wasn't centered around mitzvatime, but how are they gonna give it out? So they knew we both taught in Hebrew school, so they phoned us up and said, "Could you get orders for the book?" At this point, you're full-fledged Lubavitchers? Uh, the-- Well, I think we were considered to be part of the crowd. Okay. Um, we didn't live in Sam Fitel. We lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb near the yeshiva. It was a fledgling Lubavitch community- Mm-hmm ... um, with Rabbi Hertz as the Rav. Um, and my husband said, "Sure, why not? We'll see what we can do. How much?" And they said, "No, we're giving it out." That's always a bonus. So, um, we got a list of all the headmasters from the Hebrew classes, and between the two of us, we phoned down all the headmasters, and we got orders for 10,000 books. Hmm. Meanwhile, Hindi, um, Mrs. Lou, Hindi, and another girl who's now a shlucha in Sandton in South Africa, Raisy Heft- Mm ... um, put together a book. Now, you've got to understand, there's no computers, so putting together

1:23:49 Speaker 1 a book means you're cutting out things from other places and sticking them onto sheets, and then they're gonna be photocopied or printed. Mm. Very primitive. So we phoned Shmuel up. We said, "Got orders for 10,000 books." He said, "10,000? Whoa." So he spoke to Yonasan Hackner, who by that time had come back to London and was running the printing press, which was a glorified photocopy machine- ... um, in the back of Lubavitch. And Yonasan said, "If I move my bed into the room where the machine is, and I run it six days a week, 24 hours a day, it's gonna come out on single sheets of paper, not anything like folded in half and stapled, single sheets of paper, and the maximum I can do is 5,000 copies." And we're now a week away from the books having to be given out, and now I'm being told they're gonna come in piles of sheets of paper. So I phoned around, and I found a printer who would print the other 5,000 copies, and I said, "Well, would you be able to collate them for us?" "Oh, not by Friday. No, I'll deliver them back to you on Friday." I know. He said, "Come and pick them up on Friday, and, um, they'll all be labeled. They'll be single sheets of paper printed both sides." So the He- Hebrew classes closed that Sunday. So in our house that Motzei Shabbos and in another house in the suburb, the Rutmans, you may know some of the Rutman

1:25:26 Speaker 1 children, um, we got a few friends to come round to both houses, and literally like packhorses, they walked around the table collating these books. And as we had enough for each order, somebody went out delivering them and left them on the headmaster's doorstep through the night. The last books were delivered at, I think, 9:30 or 10:00 the next morning, straight to that last Hebrew school. They all got out. Um, and then came Yom Kippur. But the interesting thing was, um, it was called the STEP book, Summer Torah Education Program. That went on from 1973 to 1992. Every year we produced a book. And so you still don't consider yourself a shlucha for all that? No, not shlucha. Didn't get the, didn't get the stamp on the piece of paper. That it doesn't matter. We did it. So at the beginning, I was doing it with Hindi, and we then-- the books got better, and we got better at doing the puzzles. I have very, very beautiful handwriting, and I used to write the text. No computers. You couldn't, like, computerize anything. So I wrote the description on how to do the puzzles, and we did the puzzles. We became experts at how to do puzzles. I had the best-- I had dozens of books that I cut out pictures of animals before treif animals, whatever. And we had monkeys and all elephants, all different things that would make up the clues for the puzzles. And then as the Rebbe came out with different, different campaigns,

1:27:08 Speaker 1 they became incorporated. So the year the Rebbe first came out with Rambam, that whole book that summer was dedicated to the Rambam. So there were maps, the Rebbe's-- the Rambam's journey. I learnt so much from doing these books. It was, it was brilliant. I loved it. And it also-- It was-- I told you I was going to do art and drama, but this was art. I, I, this is- This is what you loved ... this is what I loved doing. Mm. Like, um, so the books became-- We ran a competition, kids sent in their own puzzles, and it, it, it, it diminished in number after a while because more and more children were going to Jewish day schools- Right ... and less were going to Hebrew classes. But it, it was, it was a great project. Um, and then, um, carried on and that was what we did. And then Mivtzeneshek, I wasn't so involved in. But then I think the first one really we got involved in was Hanukkah and Purim. Did it ever, did it ever feel like too much? Uh, you know, one of the earlier, maybe even the first podcast I released, I spoke about a letter that I had read from a lady named Chava Gryzman. I don't know if you- Yeah. And she had written a letter, and it was published in s- in like a book of her writings. I don't even know if it was published at the time. But she had written a letter-- She had

1:28:38 Speaker 1 written it... She had published-- She had written it as an essay, but it was also like a kind of letter that she would have liked to have written to the Rebbe at the time, which was, "I, I, I don't, I don't have time t- or I don't feel like I can do everything. I can't have kids and take care of my house and do all these mitzvot ayin." Right? 'Cause like you said a few moments ago that there were no mitzvot ayin at the time, which in a way feels like such a open space. There must have been s- so much space to do your own thing, right? And to-- But then with time, there's one mitzvah, another mitzvah, another mitzvah, another mitzvah, and you're, you're, you're, you're-- There's so much to do on top of having however many children you had. Did you ever feel at some point that, like, it's too much? I don't... I, like- I can't, I can't tell you what year it was, but there was a, uh, there was a year that I wrote to the Rebbe and I said, "I can't do this anymore. I'm working so hard. I am so tired. The children are taking up more and more of my time. I'm exhausted, and I want to know what I should give up." And I got a letter back, and the postscript on the letter said, "The brachos that you get for working on my mitzvot ayin far exceed any effort that you put in." And

1:30:10 Speaker 1 at the time I was angry. Hmm. And now I know it was true. I look around and I see all the brachos, and the Rebbe was right. It was hard, and there were times when I was so exhausted. You know, I, I don't know if you know, but you get to that point at three o'clock in the morning when you've got to get something to the printer the next day, you're so tired. I know. And somebody makes- I told, I told you I work with David. Okay, right. So I have deadlines. And, and somebody makes a joke, which under normal circumstances is not even remotely funny, and you're so tired, you start to laugh hysterically at this ridiculous comment. It's like you're just so tired. Yeah. Now, now I find I can't do all-nighters anymore. Now I need to go to bed early. I can get up at six o'clock in the morning and do more before I come to work. Right. But then I couldn't do that 'cause at six o'clock in the morning, I had to get up to see to the kids. So- Sure ... um, we were doing these all-nighters. And really the person who was the tzadik in the whole thing was my husband- Mm-hmm ... because he went to work every day. And this is a guy who does not go to work till he's davened and put on Rabbeinu Tam. He's the most mesoratic person. You know, a dentist, your life works on appointments. Right. So he, he-

1:31:32 Speaker 1 And he, and he, and he's British. Very British. So, you know, he was the tzadik because he was the one that he was the driving force. I make the noise, but he is the pusher. He's the one, you know, "Okay, we've got to do this, we've got to do this, we've got to do this." Hmm. So the Hanukkah and Purim came along, and the Rebbe wanted some Purim kits- But, but, but one, but one moment. I wanted to continue- Yeah ... one moment. You said you were angry at the time. Yeah. And, and, and, and I'm not- I just felt the Rebbe didn't know how hard I was working. Right, right. I'm not pushing you on, I'm not pushing you on what you said after that, that now you, now you see it, but at the time, how did you respond to it? Like, like, I, I mean, I- He doesn't know. He doesn't know. I didn't tell him. I didn't explain to him. He doesn't understand. And Berlin said to me, "It's fine. We'll manage. We'll get by. We'll..." The same thing he always said, "It'll be okay." So you didn't change anything? No, we didn't change anything. And, and, and you- And I told you before we started this podcast, how did we start 770 in the UK? We went to Rabbi Tzudak. It was after Simchat Torah. We were tired. We went to Rabbi Tzudak and we said, "What should we stop doing?" Like, give us... Rabbi Tzudak was really our mentor.

1:32:48 Speaker 1 Right. Like, what age do you put your girls in tights? What age do you s- do you send your child to Oley Torah? I came from such an English background, and now I've got to send a boy, Oley Torah or English. So, uh, like we went to Rabbi Tzudak with all these things. So we s- went to him, and he did what, bless him, he always did in a situation like this. He shouted at us You're coming to me to ask me what you should give up? And I have Rabbi Chodikov on the phone every day. The rabbi's screaming about Tzevet Hashem, and he wants to know what's happening here, and I've printed all the stuff, and I've got nobody to do it." And we looked at each other, and we felt so bad. Poor Rabbi Sudak. Rabbi Chodikov's screaming at him. So we left with Tzevet Hashem, and I, I don't know how many more boxes to take home to our already box-ridden house. So, and that's how we got into T- that's how we started Tzevet Hashem. That's- Which is a whole other story. But, but, but how long did that anger persist? 'Cause I, I think that's such a- It lasted five minutes ... no, it's such a, it's such an honest reflection because usually people say, "I got the letter from the rebbe, and, and, and the storm cleared. You know, everything was resolved." No, no. You're talking to Sandy Weiman. I blow, and then I calm down and get on

1:34:00 Speaker 1 with it. Mm-hmm. My children will tell you, "Her bark is worse than her bite." Yeah, I blow. I get... I'm angry, I'm hurt, and I'm sure the rebbe was sitting in 770 laughing like, "Okay, I'll get more out of her. There's more to get. I'll get it." Mm-hmm. And he did, every time. Hmm. So, so you were saying something about Hanukkah and Purim, right? I cut you off. Sorry. There was Mivtzo Hanukkah. There was Mivtzo Purim, um, putting together Purim kits. The first Purim kit that was put together was, um, a card. It was done in my house with a little boy called Shimmy over my lap. The legend of Shimmy. Yeah. Over my lap, and there was no computers, so there was something called Letraset with sheets, and you rubbed out each letter. That whole sheet, that first Purim card was Letraseted, the whole thing, letter by letter on that card. And then we had a bag with nuts and raisins and a bag with two pennies in it. And then the rebbe came out and said he saw the Purim kits that people were giving out. It was very nice, but there should be a kasaye se food, and of course, there wasn't. So we had to rethink the whole thing the next year. But, um... And I, I laugh because at the time, there was no shlach manos like there is now. Really, it was the rebbe who kickstarted the whole big business of shlach manos. Before that, it was a paper

1:35:37 Speaker 1 plate with a couple of things on it. You took it to your neighbor, they took it to you, end. Gendik. Um, and the rebbe made it into a mitzvah. So it seems, it seems like, it seems like you, you basically like-- almost the whole entire story of yours is, is almost like, it's like a gradual story. It's a story of, like, very gradual movement where, like, the-- You haven't yet told me of, like, a moment where there's, like, a be- a very defined before and after, right? Like- There's no befo- uh, it just all melts one into the other. Right. Right. Just, uh- Which is very interesting. Like, y- you didn't, like, say, "One day I'm gonna be a Hasid." No. Like, "I'm gonna write a letter because that's my way ar-around my parents." Mm-hmm. "And so I went to seminary." But then you got married to your boyfriend, who wasn't even a Lubavitcher, who you had known before. It's just like, there's no, like, there's no, there's no, like, a chasm in between any of these moments. No, no, no. It's like- It's all, it all just- Right ... went like that. Which, which is so interesting 'cause even with your shlichut or non-shlichas, right, your, your activities, it's just like you started in Hebrew school to make a living, which then bled into the next thing, which then bled into the next thing. Um, it seems like now you're, you're running another organization which is not officially a shlichas, right? It's- Definitely isn't.

1:36:54 Speaker 1 It's not. But it, but it seems like you would, you would think of it as part of the rebbe's work, or you're, you're just- Okay. I, I- There was pictures here ... I doubted. I d-- I d- Oh, yeah, there was a picture up here on the wall, right? Yeah. I, I doubted when I started the center. I actually was worried that maybe, like, we weren't concentrating on shiurim and we weren't, uh... There were so many other people doing that, and that's really not my thing. When did you start the center? Okay. The center started in 2000. Not here. Um, it was actually the brainchild of my children, Yossi and Chani Simon. Um, it was gonna be, it was gonna be the millennium. Hanukkah and Hanukkah fell both at the same time. And in America, in Tzevet Hashem, they had a Hanukkah house in Manhattan. And Yossi said it would be so good if we could find somewhere to make a Hanukkah house in London. And we drove up and down Golders Green Road looking for an empty property, and we didn't see anything. Or we sat outside, and we'd phone the agent, and they said, "No, we're not interested in a two-week let or whatever." And then we saw a building that was half hidden under the bridge on Golders Green Road, and it said, "To let." So, um, I said to Yossi, "Let's go and see what it is." Anyway, it was like a Tar- Do you know what a TARDIS is? A

1:38:29 Speaker 1 TARDIS? Yeah. Uh, no. Do you know "Doctor Who"? Okay. Forget it. There were-- A, a TARDIS, there was like, um... It was a, a television program back in the '60s about this man. There was a telephone box. Mm-hmm. And inside, it opened into this huge spaceship. Oh, interesting. So this was like a tiny door under a bridge, and inside, there was like 7,000 square feet of space. It just opened backwards. And Yossi said to me, "Do you think we could get this for, um, a month?" He said, "We'll need time because it's, it's a chorban. We'll need time." Right. So, um, I phoned the agents up, and they said, "Yeah, but, you know, the roof leaks, and this is wrong with that." I said, "No, we're not, we're not want it permanently. We just want it for whatever." So we took it, and, um, we got gallons and gallons of paint and painted the walls and put up temporary lighting and loads of heaters and everything else. And then I, I got a-- did a huge Hanukkah display. It was magnificent. I can't think of any other way to describe it. And it was like everything in me came out for good things. And, um, it, it was just glorious. And then we had different people selling Hanukkah things, and then there were Hanukkah arts and crafts. And upstairs, there was a game show, long before Dovid's game shows. Uh, there was a game show, and there were all different activities and a restaurant. And

1:40:07 Speaker 1 people flocked. Thousands of people came over those two weeks. And people said, "This is amazing. This is what we need in London.need somewhere where Jewish kids can come and play." Anyway, we gave up the lease, we gave back the keys, and then Yossi asked me if I could get it again to do Matzoh Bakeries. So we got it again to do Matzoh Bakeries, and then, um, Yossi said to me, "This would make a great Tzimmes center." And it was coming up for auction. And I spoke to somebody who was doing the auction, and he said, "Look, it's going to go... This is prime property on Gorgeous Green Road. It's going to come up for auction for 400,000 pounds." It was peanuts. And he said, "You know, I don't know if it's gonna go to auction, but if you want to do a deal before the auction." And I found somebody who loaned, gave me a gamach of half the money.

1:41:09 Speaker 4 Mm.

1:41:09 Speaker 1 And I found another balabos who managed to get me a mortgage, um, for the other half of the money, and we bought the building at auction. But we had no plan. I know about business plans. I knew about children plans. I didn't know about business plans. So we had this building, and then we had to fill it and do things with it. And actually, at that time, we didn't know what to do with it. We, we really didn't know. Um, and after a few months, it became very, very clear that I couldn't sustain paying this mortgage off. And plus, um, I had a gamach that I had to pay off at some point. So I went to the agent who'd helped me buy the building, and I said, "I think I'm gonna have to sell it, but is there a way I could sell it but then rent it from the person?" He said, "It's called buy and lease back." That shows how much I knew about anything. Anyway, he found somebody who was prepared to do it. Um, he said, "How much do you want for it?" Idiot that I am, I said, "Well, I just wanna be able to clear the choyves." So I, I didn't even get the 400,000 back for it. I got enough to clear the choyves.

1:42:25 Speaker 4 Hmm.

1:42:25 Speaker 1 And then we leased the building back, and then it, it slowly started to develop. Um, it became, it became a place for Jewish families to be able to do things in a Jew- in a cultur- the, the language is now a culturally appropriate setting.

1:42:43 Speaker 4 Hmm.

1:42:44 Speaker 1 Um, and we ran fun days, and we ran all different activities, and it was really nice. After, um, a few years, I realized that-- We found that there were people walking through the door who had all sorts of social problems. And in the frum community, they would-- they didn't trust going to statutory bodies. There's always this fear, oh, you've got a large family, they're gonna take your children away.

1:43:11 Speaker 4 Right, right.

1:43:12 Speaker 1 So, um, we managed to get a social worker, and we tied up with another organization for that, and we started to do some social work. Now, I know nothing about social work. I'm a mommy. I-

1:43:29 Speaker 4 Uh, that, that means you know quite a bit.

1:43:30 Speaker 1 No. So I, uh, was a good person for people to cry on their shoulder, but practically-

1:43:35 Speaker 4 Right

1:43:36 Speaker 1 ... I wasn't very good at this. Anyway, it grew. That side of things started to grow, and we took on a part-time social worker and, um, the whole-- The building was busy. Baruch Hashem, it was busy. It wasn't making any money. I'm not into money-making, but it was, it was successful.

1:43:58 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:43:58 Speaker 1 And then came COVID. Um, and we, we were left with the building, which we had to make COVID-ready for when we reopened.

1:44:08 Speaker 4 Right.

1:44:09 Speaker 1 So, um, I took a... They called them bounce-back loans, you know. And I managed to clear all the debts that we had on the building-

1:44:17 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm

1:44:17 Speaker 1 ... and had enough money to get the building ready to reopen. We reopened for a month. We ran a c- summer camp, and then they closed us down again. It was the second wave. We got closed down, and at that point I said, "I can't, can't do this anymore." So we, we gave up our lease. Um, the landlord was actually very good. Um, gave up our lease, and we moved out. But then we had a problem because we have this social work that we're doing, and that was growing exponentially because of COVID. So, um, we rented a house for six months while we started to look around for new premises, and we found this beautiful location, which was, um, an office building, brand-new office building. Um, and we took two office spaces, and then we were able to fit it out. It-- We knew by then, 20 years on, what I needed. Um, we built it. It's beautiful. It's lovely. I'm so happy with it. And then-

1:45:25 Speaker 4 So this is just a couple years old.

1:45:26 Speaker 1 This is just a couple of years old. And then, um, we found there was another need within the community that, unfortunately, when couples get divorced, very often there's a lot of acrimony between the husband and wife.

1:45:41 Speaker 4 Right.

1:45:41 Speaker 1 The wife will make accusations about the husband, the husband will make accusations about the wife. It goes to court, and court mandates something called contact-

1:45:50 Speaker 4 Right

1:45:50 Speaker 1 ... that has to be supervised. And-

1:45:53 Speaker 4 For the other party to watch the child.

1:45:55 Speaker 1 Yeah. No. That you have to have somebody who will-- who's qualified to watch the children play with the non-resident parent-

1:46:03 Speaker 4 Right. The non-

1:46:04 Speaker 1 ... and take notes-

1:46:05 Speaker 4 Right

1:46:06 Speaker 1 ... which will go to court, and then the court will decide whether it needs to continue to be supervised, whether it can go into the community or whatever happens. We started to do this, and then we found out that you really have to be accredited to do it. So we jumped through hoops for a year, and we became an accredited contact center. This, where we're sitting now, is actually one of the contact rooms.

1:46:26 Speaker 4 Mm.

1:46:28 Speaker 1 Um, we're now in the process of doing another beautiful contact room that will also be a sensory room for kids with sensory issues. Um, and the social work side has really grown. We have three social workers, therapists, counselors, family support workers. Um, Baruch Hashem, if, if you want to know, this is probably the most important thing I've ever done in my life.

1:46:51 Speaker 4 Hmm.

1:46:52 Speaker 1 It's-- And I believe that the reason it's successful is because it's totally based on Ahavat Yisrael. There's no assessment. Are, are they really worthy of getting the help? Do they really need it? They're Jewish, we help them.

1:47:06 Speaker 4 Right.

1:47:07 Speaker 1 And, and Baruch Hashem, the abish is very good, and the rebbe is very good, and that's it.

1:47:14 Speaker 4 Yeah. What a beautiful way to, uh, put a bow on, on the story because it, it just, it just, it, it's the same pattern and, and, and it feels-

1:47:23 Speaker 1 Oh, it's all very fluid. It all flows.

1:47:25 Speaker 4 No, but it, on one hand, none of it is predictable. Like, not everything-- Right? But on the other hand, it all is-- makes so much sense, right? And it seems like, it seems like when, when there's something organic at the core and something very real at the core, and there's just that kind of personal-

1:47:43 Speaker 1 Meet the call. The Rebbe.

1:47:45 Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah, but, uh, I'm-- Yes, fair, but I, I think, I think this is your story, right? And your story, of course, is inspired by the Rebbe, and, and, and that's been abundantly clear. But I feel like there's something very organic at the core of your story. It starts with your parents, perhaps. It goes to you, and just the-- In a way, the fact that you didn't... At least to me, the way I'm understanding your story, I don't get to tell you how you should how you should feel about your story.

1:48:12 Speaker 1 I know. It's, um, I don't-

1:48:13 Speaker 4 But I am a storyteller

1:48:13 Speaker 1 ... I don't think about it.

1:48:14 Speaker 4 But I am a-- Right. So I am a storyteller. That's how I think-

1:48:17 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:48:17 Speaker 4 ... that's how I think about things. And, you know, in a way, in a way, it seems that if there had-- The way your story works is only because there never needed to be a before and after moment, right? It's organic. It's what's needed. It's what's, what, it's what feels right. It-- what is right at the time. And, you know, it just, it, it's, it's like they say, when water, when water's coming down a mountain, it just, it finds a way. It finds a way to get to where it's needed.

1:48:46 Speaker 1 Hundred percent. Mm-hmm.

1:48:47 Speaker 4 And, and, and that's what it feels like. And what a beautiful way to end, to say that after all this time and after all these twists and turns and crevices and, you know, whatever it is, like, you know, the, the re- the, the, the, the nooks and crannies where the water flows, at, at a-- after all this time, you feel like you're just beginning. This is the most important thing you've been doing. That's such a beautiful thing to, to say and such a beautiful thing to hear.

1:49:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. But there's, there've been so many catalysts. Okay. The yeshiva, when the yeshiva came to London-

1:49:25 Speaker 4 Right

1:49:25 Speaker 1 ... it was a big catalyst for us. My husband had never been to yeshiva.

1:49:28 Speaker 4 Right.

1:49:30 Speaker 1 The bochurim, um, at the beginning, the sh- the shluchim who came were-- brought an excitement to the community, and they, they, they really impacted very much on us as a family.

1:49:46 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:49:47 Speaker 1 Um, we were also very useful to them. They were very useful to us. They used to pack Purim kits for us, Hanukkah kits.

1:49:55 Speaker 4 Right.

1:49:56 Speaker 1 Tzvas Hashem newsletters. They were an amazing source. They would do it willingly for a couple of kogels and a couple of chocolate cakes.

1:50:02 Speaker 4 Right.

1:50:03 Speaker 1 So that was great. Um, but they were also a catalyst for us doing things, uh, uh-

1:50:09 Speaker 4 I, I didn't, I didn't understand that you were taking all the credit for what you did. That's not how, that's not what I understood. If anything, you mentioned many people who were involved in your story. But I think ultimately there is, there is, there is that... And why does water, why does water f-f-find its way down the mountain? Because it just lets itself go, right? It's not because it, it thinks it's all important. To the contrary. It, it, it, it, it, it lets itself be taken where it needs to go. So I didn't-

1:50:39 Speaker 1 Hundred percent. I think, I think probably my biggest brocha is my, um, stupidity is not really a nice word to use, but also lack of thought. Like, I know-- I have children who turn around to me and say, "Ma, you have no business plan." Uh, like I never had a business plan.

1:51:00 Speaker 4 Right.

1:51:00 Speaker 1 The Rebbe was my business plan. He wants Mivtzoim, you do Mivtzoim. Where's the money gonna come from? Well, I haven't got a clue, but it will come, and it always somehow did. It may not have always been straightforward, and we may have had to go out and take a million loans and sort things out, but it always happens.

1:51:18 Speaker 4 Right.

1:51:18 Speaker 1 But I, I, I'll tell you what the-- I think my biggest baby, um, um, is a, a rabbi in New York called Rabbi Zelman Karp, and he was a shliach in London at the yeshiva. And one night-- He's very, very tall.

1:51:35 Speaker 4 Mm-hmm.

1:51:35 Speaker 1 Very big. And one night, there's the most enormous noise outside our house. We lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb. That's a very posh area.

1:51:44 Speaker 4 Right.

1:51:44 Speaker 1 You don't make noise at night in Hampstead Garden.

1:51:47 Speaker 4 Right.

1:51:47 Speaker 1 Open the door, and there's Zelman jumping on the roof of our car, which had a permanent dent in it afterwards. "There is no giant menorah in London. How can you sleep at night? There is no giant menorah." "Get off the car. We'll get a giant menorah," you know. And that's how he was the catalyst to making the giant menorah.

1:52:07 Speaker 4 Sounds like he was coming from a farbrengen.

1:52:09 Speaker 1 Probably. Probably he was blind drunk. I don't know.

1:52:12 Speaker 4 Right.

1:52:12 Speaker 1 But he got a giant menorah, and London got a giant menorah and, um- And, and the cherry picker driver for the giant menorah for the last 35-plus years was my husband, and only this year he's stepping a little bit back, not doing as much as he did.

1:52:28 Speaker 4 Yeah, but there, but, but there again, I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but there again, uh, most people, especially British people-

1:52:35 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

1:52:35 Speaker 4 ... somebody would be drunk on their c- jumping on their car late at night, embarrassing them in front of their neighbors, their instinct would be, "Get lost. Leave me alone. Behave yourself." Right? And, and it seems like instead you're like, "Well, he has a point." Right?

1:52:51 Speaker 1 He does have a point.

1:52:51 Speaker 4 He has a point.

1:52:52 Speaker 1 He did have a point. We discussed it.

1:52:53 Speaker 4 All right. So that's-

1:52:54 Speaker 1 We decided we couldn't do it, but then he said we must, and we did. We built a menorah. We contacted Leeds, which were the only place that had a giant menorah at that time, and th- they put us in touch with their builder. The menorah came down from Leeds to London. It got finished off in the playground at the yeshiva.

1:53:14 Speaker 4 Right.

1:53:14 Speaker 1 And it was the menorah that went up for years and years until it had to be tipped, and then we had to make a new much nicer menorah.

1:53:23 Speaker 4 Right.

1:53:24 Speaker 1 Um, but it, you know, it's like it all, as you said, it all just flowed.

1:53:29 Speaker 4 Well-

1:53:29 Speaker 1 And we went with that flow

1:53:31 Speaker 4 ... and I think, I think, you know, I think, I think just to put a bow on it, you know, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of... There are a lot of ideas in Hasidics that are-- I mean, first of all, they're in a different language, but they're also, they're sometimes very large and hard to, hard to picture.

1:53:49 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:53:49 Speaker 4 And so one of the ideas is the idea of bitl, and people bandy that word around, uh, bitl, you know, this person has bitl. They, you should have bitl. What does bitl look like, right? I'm sure there are many ways, and I'm not here to give a Hasidics class, but the idea of going with the flow would seem to be one of those, would be what, would be, would seem to be-

1:54:08 Speaker 1 You're very kind.

1:54:10 Speaker 4 Well-

1:54:11 Speaker 1 You're very kind

1:54:12 Speaker 4 ... as a, like a-

1:54:13 Speaker 1 I'll take the compliment.

1:54:14 Speaker 4 Right. Right. As, as one would ex- as one would expect, a- as I would have expected at this point in the story. Anyway, thank you very much.

1:54:21 Speaker 1 Thank you.

1:54:22 Speaker 4 This has been a blast, a real blast. Uh-

1:54:23 Speaker 1 It's certainly not like some of the podcasts I listen to, so I apologize.

1:54:28 Speaker 4 No, this has been a blast. And, um, you know, for all of those out there who, who are many, who, who know one of the Weinbaums or many of them, um, this will probably help you better understand where they get a little bit of their-

1:54:40 Speaker 1 Their nuttiness

1:54:41 Speaker 4 ... their I didn't say it.

1:54:43 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:54:44 Speaker 4 All right. Thank you very much.

1:54:45 Speaker 1 My kids get their, their, their, their, I don't know what, their, their groundedness from their husbands and their nuttiness fr- their, from their father, and their nuttiness from their mother.

1:54:56 Speaker 4 All right.

1:54:56 Speaker 1 It's a good combination.

1:54:58 Speaker 4 Fair enough. All right. Thank you very much.

1:54:59 Speaker 1 Thank you.

1:54:59 Speaker 4 It's been a pleasure. The music for this podcast comes from the album Repentance Doors by Oren Zorn and Havah Car, and is used with their permission.