Ep. 42 // "The Rebbe's Doctor" w/ Rabbi Michoel Seligson

00:00 Speaker 1 He asks my father immediately to see the child. He sees the child. My father says, "Everything will be all right." And then he says, "I need to talk to the Rebbe." Chali had an open door by the Rebbe. He came out, he told the father of the child, from whom I heard it a few times, that the Rebbe once told my father that when you come to a situation where medicine cannot do anything, you should pass a verdict, a psak, that everything is in order, and I will do the rest.

00:29 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2024. My name is Bentzi Offson, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. I'm here with Rabbi Michoel Seligson in Crown Heights, who is a teacher and a, uh, mechaber of, an author of multiple sefarim. Um, most notably the Maftea Chants Ukes Kodesh. I think it was, uh, 20 years ago or a little bit more than 20 years ago, I was in Gan Yisroel, Parksville, um, in Maspiddim. I think I was in the Maspiddim group. I forgot what it was called. Um, and we had, we had a guest for most of the tefillahs. You were, I guess, staying in the-

01:28 Speaker 1 The nearby bungalow colony in Crown Heights

01:31 Speaker 2 ... Yeah, nearby bungalow colony, and, uh, you were, you were-

01:35 Speaker 1 Chiyuv

01:35 Speaker 2 ... for?

01:36 Speaker 1 For my mother.

01:36 Speaker 2 For your mother. For your mother. And, uh, yeah, I remember you came with us, uh, on the bus ride to, uh... We were your minyan, I, I guess. So you came with us on a bus ride to Toronto, right?

01:48 Speaker 1 Niagara Falls.

01:49 Speaker 2 Niagara Falls, and there was an amusement park, and I, I remember, I remember to this day, uh, how we, we were at the amusement park. We all went in. You clearly had no use for the amusement park. You, you, you came for the minyan. You sat the whole day while we were in the amusement park outside working on your mafteach. And that day it was, it was, for me, uh, a boy coming from Hong Kong, it was quite a mechzit to see, um, you know, someone working on a sefer like that and you know, also, also doing something important, you know, um, busy with something important and, um, yeah, it w- it, it left a lasting impression. In any case, um, a few months ago, I was here in this very office to interview you for a project, for a video project, and, um, we were speaking a little bit about your father, the late Dr. Seligson, the Dr. Avraham Avel Seligson, who was known by many as the Rebbe's doctor. Did the Rebbe refer to him as Re- as his doctor?

02:54 Speaker 1 The Rebbe mentioned a friend, but, uh, I mean, in a practical sense, the Rebbe would refer many people to him, and he was also the Rebbe's personal doctor.

03:04 Speaker 2 Right. So he was known as Rebbe's doctor, and we were speaking about it, and you told me that you had a sefer about him, and, um, a biography about him, and I asked you if I could borrow a copy. You were kind enough to give me a copy, and I took it home, and I think I opened it up that Shabbos, and, uh, I read it cover to cover. I found it, I found it absolutely... It's not a very large... What is it? 150 pages? 200 pages?

03:28 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm. Probably could be less at that point.

03:31 Speaker 2 Less even, right? It's not very long.

03:33 Speaker 1 Came out to the first year, so that's whatever we had, we had.

03:37 Speaker 2 Right.

03:37 Speaker 1 But later there were additions.

03:38 Speaker 2 Right. It's not very long, but, uh, I was, I was absolutely fascinated by it, and, um, I asked you if you would be willing to, uh, come on the podcast to talk about, um, Dr. Seligson, who, who led a incredibly fascinating and, um, just, just fascinating life. And, uh, you were kind enough to agree, so thank you very much for coming on.

04:02 Speaker 1 Welcome.

04:04 Speaker 2 Right. So let me bring it a little bit closer, unless you want to talk a little bit louder. Whatever's more comfortable for you. So, um, let, let's, let, let's, let, let's, let's begin, let's begin with your, with your father's, with your father's early life in, uh, remind me, was it Poland? The-

04:24 Speaker 1 Krakow

04:24 Speaker 2 ... it, it moved, right?

04:25 Speaker 1 Krakow originally.

04:27 Speaker 2 Right.

04:28 Speaker 1 My father was born in Krakow, um, 1907, the 27th of Tammuz. Happened to be a day right before Tisha B'Av.

04:38 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

04:38 Speaker 1 And, um, his father was originally from Russia, from Belizhe, as a descendant of the Alter Rebbe, uh, from the Alter Rebbe's middle son. But since the shidduch was in Poland, so my grandfather stayed there. Then World War I broke out, and he stayed weiter. He stayed, continued staying, and then came the World War II already, and, uh, this is where my father started running to, uh, to a diff- different-- uh, running away from Poland. Uh, but in between, in-- as he was growing up, he went to medical school.

05:19 Speaker 2 Right.

05:20 Speaker 1 And he studied in Vilna, Strasbourg, and then doing his research in Austria, Vienna, and then he worked in the Krakow Hospital, the Jewish Krakow Hospital before the war. And that, and then he, uh, he left Poland when the war broke out. And in this interim, he also wrote articles in French, in Polish. Some were published, and some did not make it into publishing because the war broke out.

05:50 Speaker 2 Can you, can you describe a little bit, uh, a little bit the, the... Well, o- one of the things that was really interesting to me was how your grandfather... Was his name also Michoel?

06:00 Speaker 1 Yeah.

06:01 Speaker 2 You're named after your grandfather.

06:02 Speaker 1 Yeah.

06:04 Speaker 2 Can you des-- One of the things that was interesting was how you describe him being the only Hasid in Krakow.

06:11 Speaker 1 Yeah.

06:11 Speaker 2 The only Lubavitcher Hasid.

06:12 Speaker 1 Lubavitcher Hasid. Right.

06:13 Speaker 2 Can you describe a little bit how f- how you understand the way Lubavitchers used to live back then? I know you said he came for a shidduch, but the idea of Lubavitchers living so mu- like Krakow was a big city. It was not, uh, it was not a village.

06:27 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

06:28 Speaker 2 Like what was this idea that Lubavitchers would just live by themselves? Was that a normal thing?

06:35 Speaker 1 He lived there because he, uh, got married there, then he became part of the community. To a certain ext- extent, he was a gabbai or in the shul, Megale Amukah Shul. Um, and he signed on certain papers, certain meetings they had, so they had minutes, uh, recording what was taking place. And the Friediker Rebbe stayed in his house-

07:00 Speaker 2 Hmm

07:00 Speaker 1 ... in around the middle of 19- 1905, 1907, and, um, the, the Friediker Rebbe stayed there. This was in the lifetime of the pre- the Rebbe Rashab. And then 1933, we find a letter that the previous Rebbe's writing that he would like to have a chassidishe in the house of Rav Michoel Zelikson. Chassidishe. And he picks Rabbi Mentlik, who was learning in yeshiva then.

07:29 Speaker 2 Right.

07:29 Speaker 1 They should send him for Shabbos, and he was, he-- and my grandfather, as mentioned, was the only Lubavitcher Hasid. And this, uh, and the previous Rebbe saw this as an activity to be mechanech, to introduce other yeshiva bachurim to Chassidus.

07:45 Speaker 2 Rab- what was Rabbi Mentlik doing there?

07:47 Speaker 1 Rabbi Mentlik did, did not live there. He learned in the yeshiva.

07:51 Speaker 2 Where?

07:51 Speaker 1 But he was s- he learned in Nowy Korczyn.

07:54 Speaker 2 Oh, it's in Nowy Korczyn.

07:54 Speaker 1 I'm talking about in the-

07:55 Speaker 2 It's already Nowy Korczyn time

07:56 Speaker 1 ... I'm talking about 1933. Um, so in that time period, he was, he was already in Poland, so he, he came from a different city for Shabbos, and he would go back after Shabbos.

08:07 Speaker 2 So your zeide lived in-

08:08 Speaker 1 Krakow

08:09 Speaker 2 ... in Krakow from 1907, you said?

08:11 Speaker 1 My zeide got married there in 1904.

08:15 Speaker 2 So from 1904 to 1933-

08:17 Speaker 1 1933, he lived in Krakow

08:19 Speaker 2 ... he's living there by himself-

08:20 Speaker 1 He, he lived there-

08:21 Speaker 2 ... as a Lubavitcher

08:21 Speaker 1 ... right. He was-

08:23 Speaker 2 And your grandmother was not from a Lubavitch family

08:24 Speaker 1 My grandmother was from a different yiches, from, uh, they, they, they stem from my, my father, my grandfather and my grandmother, they had yiches from the Rama. They came from the Megale Amukos, uh, from Rav Naftali Shapiro. They're different, they — We have a Megilas Hayuchsin. We have the whole genealogy.

08:45 Speaker 2 I'm not, I'm not questioning the yiches. I'm just-

08:47 Speaker 1 Okay

08:47 Speaker 2 ... my, my shail is I try to understand how did Lu- how did Chassidim live back then? It's very, like it's, it, it was, it was surprising to me that you would have, 'cause your, 'cause your, your, your, your grandfather also came from a very mu- a very muyuchasdike Lubavitch family, and he would choose to marry a, a girl from a not Lubavitch family and live in a community where he's the only Lubavitcher. It's, was that something that the Rebbe encouraged him to do? Was that something-

09:16 Speaker 1 It's-

09:16 Speaker 2 ... the Lubavitchers did back then?

09:18 Speaker 1 It's an interesting point because I never actually thought about it. But he was a very, uh, uh, uh, involved community person.

09:27 Speaker 2 Hmm.

09:27 Speaker 1 He got my father-- After my father was nifter, I found a note that he wrote. He wrote it for himself, and I used it later for my, for, for the sefer. My father says he has crossed from continent to continent. He did not find a personality like his father. He says-

09:43 Speaker 2 Like your grandfather

09:44 Speaker 1 ... like my grandfather. He says, "Bikur Cholim, uh, Chevra Kadisha, everything, helping people." Uh, he was like a community person throughout, uh, the whole time. In a sense, there is a Rabbi, uh, Loew, um, uh, how you say his last-- Rabbi Loewenthal.

10:08 Speaker 2 Oh, yes.

10:08 Speaker 1 So he visited-

10:10 Speaker 2 Which one? Which-

10:10 Speaker 1 Uh, Naftali. Um, Naftali Loewenthal

10:12 Speaker 2 Oh, the, the grandfather

10:13 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

10:14 Speaker 2 Yeah. He was on the podcast

10:15 Speaker 1 Yeah. So he visited Krakow when it was seven hundred years of Jews in Krakow.

10:20 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

10:21 Speaker 1 And he heard that I have a connection to Krakow, so he asked me if I have any information. I said, "Yeah, sure, I can give you a lot of information." So he spoke in Krakow, and he later sent me his article, and he mentioned that Krakow stood out for three things: pochal, the Yiddish community, and then there was also the, uh, the, um, there were different, the Salish Nider, which started to develop. And then he says in a very subtle way, when the Friediker Rebbe was asking to make shiurim and to be mechanech bachurim Chabad, this was the first Chabad house.

10:57 Speaker 2 Huh.

10:58 Speaker 1 He says, "Mama's the first Chabad house." So the, the Friediker Rebbe asked my grandfather. My grandfather was possibly working. I mean, we don't have too much, uh, information, but basically, as it's understood, it was like it was an open house that people came and, uh, identified with Chaba- connected to Chabad, interested themselves in Chabad. And his, h- and actually, all the siblings, uh, many, uh, some of the siblings of my grandfather, one of them lived in Vilna, who supported the Lubavitch Yeshiva in Vilna in time of the Rebbe Rashab, yeah. So they're all, they were all basically community people, com- communal people that were involved in-

11:37 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

11:38 Speaker 1 ... work.

11:39 Speaker 2 In Tzach Yitzhar. You know, just a year ago, I was sitting right here recording the intro to the podcast, and at the time it was just an idea. Sitting here today thinking about where the podcast has gone, I'd be lying if I told you that I had any of that in mind when I began a year ago. The podcast has led me to travel across the country, out of the country to meet so many fascinating people, most of whom I'd never heard of before, certainly not met before. And to spend hours with them hearing their absolutely fascinating stories, and ideas, and perspectives, and then of course to share it with thousands of people around the world. One of the most precious parts of working on this project has been the response that I've gotten from people around the world. The graciousness, and kindness, and positivity has been something that I never dreamt of. Over the past year, this podcast has been completely self-funded, which is something I have absolutely zero regrets about. It has been an absolute blast, a journey of a lifetime, an experience of a lifetime, and when I think about it, probably the most important work I've ever done. But as I look towards the coming year or years of this project, God willing, I now invite you, the listeners of Homesick for Lubavitch, to take part in making this project more sustainable. So I've created a website, hflpodcast.com, where there will be a full archive, a library of all the episodes

13:13 Speaker 2 of Homesick for Lubavitch, and there will also be a link there to support the podcast, either with a monthly contribution or a one-time contribution, either of which will help make this podcast something that will be permanent, something that will be sustainable, something that will grow, something that will continue to make all of us more proud, and more hopeful, and more grateful to be who we are. What did it look like for your grandfather to be a Hasid? Like, he was not part of a community, of a Lubavitch community. He probably didn't visit in those days, especially with the wars, probably didn't vi- And the, the Rebbe, the Rebbe Shab and the Fidiker Rebbe were in places that were hard to access anyhow. He probably didn't visit them very often. I don't know, did he visit them at all?

14:01 Speaker 1 Um, I am not aware of it.

14:03 Speaker 2 What did it look like to be a Lubavitcher Hasid?

14:06 Speaker 1 He, he, we do find correspondence-

14:08 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

14:08 Speaker 1 ... with the previous Rebbe. He's writing there is their Shiurim. We need material.

14:13 Speaker 2 Right

14:13 Speaker 1 Mamish poshet technishin yonen.

14:14 Speaker 2 Right

14:14 Speaker 1 The, the Sfarim, other things. Um, interesting also is that my grandfather was also doing a lot of, uh, other Chabad houses, taking people. It was the Russo-Japanese War.

14:30 Speaker 2 Right

14:30 Speaker 1 And there were a lot of Yidden there that were in middle of everything. And, uh, my fa- my grandfather took in a lot of guests. He possibly would slap guests from the shuls, shul, and he would take him into his house. And he would encourage that he, he didn't want it maids or workers should be used for them, but basically family members alone. He want to train them that they should be doing Ahavat Chesed or from helping in the house with these guests.

14:56 Speaker 2 But I guess my question is, what would make him feel that he's a Lubavitcher? Like in what sense are they Lubavitch?

15:04 Speaker 1 Oh.

15:04 Speaker 2 What's, what's that mean?

15:05 Speaker 1 Okay. I mean, there were the Minhagim of Chabad commemorating the, uh, the Geulah, the redemption of the previous Rebbe, the redemption of the Alter Rebbe. There was the custom of eating kosher Yahrtzeit

15:18 Speaker 2 Right

15:19 Speaker 1 So they mamish kept up all these traditions, which my grandfather saw from, uh, from earlier. He did not see it from his father because his father passed away when he was very young.

15:29 Speaker 2 Right

15:29 Speaker 1 He was the youngest. Um, it was-

15:32 Speaker 2 So it's Minha- Minhagim, Minhagim mean?

15:34 Speaker 1 Minhagim, yeah, Minhagim, Shiurim, Chassidus. And even in the shul, although he was davening in, uh, not in a Lubavitcher shul or even sometimes the Ramashul, he davened Nusach Ari.

15:46 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

15:46 Speaker 1 And then I found my father a little siddur that he had, that he, he made notes on the margins the difference between the Nusach and Nusach Chabad. So it seems like already from go- early years they were, they were connected somehow, although in, uh, uh, in the community itself, they-- My, my grandfather was a, a people's person. He's very much into music, and, um, and would sing, play the Alter Rebbe's Nigunim by weddings or by certain Rebbes.

16:14 Speaker 2 He played the violin or the cello? That I didn't know.

16:16 Speaker 1 I think it's the cello.

16:17 Speaker 2 The cello.

16:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. And he would, uh-- And, uh, people knew this is a Lubavitcher Hasid. He was like very, very by one of the Rebbes. And Ha- Chanukah it was, and he was a, he was a people's person. And he worked out with any community. It wasn't like he felt lonely, him. He, he was a person, a person, and, uh, he, w- he was a community person. He was involved in everything, and wherever he needed to focus, he focused. So it was like, that was it. That was his place. And, uh, I never heard about his feelings. He did wanna go back to Russia. That was his plan, to go back to Veliz.

16:57 Speaker 2 Your zeide?

16:58 Speaker 1 My zeide, yeah. And then the war broke out. The First War, World War I broke out. That's why my father couldn't even learn in yeshiva because there was no-- It wasn't possible. So he would learn with my father.

17:08 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

17:08 Speaker 1 He would learn every night, and that's where my father got his . I mean, there my father was already on his own, sitting nights and learning and even as a teenager, like.

17:17 Speaker 2 They learned Chassidus together?

17:19 Speaker 1 I don't know, but I know that, uh, uh, Tanya was one thing that was by my father, uh, all over, over the years. Um, but Chassidus, he also learned Chassidus with him because my father definitely got, uh, you know, the culture, Chabad culture, different things. So I'm sure he did, but I never heard anything. I never saw anything. He would write Hagoes. Actually, I have a, a Medrash, a Medrash, uh, Tachuma with Hagoes that my grandfather wrote. Uh, but he, uh, he, he mamish, he raised him as a Lubavitcher. My father was raised as a Lubavitcher.

17:58 Speaker 2 Yeah. Uh, I mean, that, that to me is what's so interesting here because, uh, uh, we're gonna get to it later in the story, but your, your, your father certainly considers himself a Lubavitcher Hasid, but he had a very unusual, it seems, upbringing.

18:14 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

18:14 Speaker 2 Right?

18:15 Speaker 1 Right I mean, he didn't have, uh, companions.

18:18 Speaker 2 Right.

18:18 Speaker 1 He didn't have, like it wasn't like a

18:20 Speaker 2 Right, right. Um-

18:23 Speaker 1 Also, it could very well be that he, because when my grandfather was a child, seven years old, his father passed away, so he was raised and coached by his older brother, Rav Zalman Zeligson from Vilna. So he lived in Vilna, and he lived in Krakow, so I'm sure they were in contact with each other at certain points.

18:43 Speaker 2 Your father with your, with his uncle?

18:45 Speaker 1 My, my, my grandfather with his brother.

18:48 Speaker 2 With his brother.

18:48 Speaker 1 And my father with his uncle, when he studied in Vilna, he would stay by his uncle in Vilna. Uh, so-

18:55 Speaker 2 And your, and his uncle was more of like a sta- a typical Hasid, you're saying?

18:59 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Beard, everything. He was one of the pillars of Temchete Mimen in Vilna.

19:04 Speaker 2 And there was a larger Lubavitch community in Vilna?

19:06 Speaker 1 It seemed like, yeah, but partially it was because there was a yeshiva there, so there was a, a community. And, uh, he would come to receive learning there from a ps- a famous rav, Rabbi Reines, certain, uh, name, and, uh, he would, he would be known as about Sloca, uh, my grandfather and my father, and my gra- and my granduncle. And, uh, the community knew him to the extent that the Rebbe Rashab was planning to close the yeshiva in Temche in Vilna because there was a certain issue, they couldn't sp- support it. And the Rebbe Rashab writes about him, that he came with tears in his eyes, my granduncle saying that Temchete Mimen was the light in the city, was the apple of the eye, and how could we close it?

19:53 Speaker 2 Huh.

19:53 Speaker 1 So this is the Rebbe Rashab mentions it. And it's interesting because the Rebbe Rashab writes, uh, my granduncle, he writes

19:59 Speaker 2 'Cause they're both from-

20:02 Speaker 1 Right. But, uh, my grandfather, he doesn't mention. Just mentions Hanovit, the Hanovit Rabbi Joseph Zeligson.

20:10 Speaker 2 Interesting. Interesting. Who w- who, who was the Hanahla? Was there any famous Hanahla of the yeshiva?

20:17 Speaker 1 Rabbi Ushpahl was in Vilna, was a-

20:19 Speaker 2 Was Rosh Yeshiva?

20:20 Speaker 1 Yeah, he became one Rosh Yeshiva. He was, he was I think Rabbi Gustman also. He was the, um, Rabbi Ushpahl, later the Rosh Yeshiva in Petrikim Din-

20:31 Speaker 2 Right

20:32 Speaker 1 ... yeshiva.

20:32 Speaker 2 Right.

20:33 Speaker 1 There were a few names. There was a article written by Shmuel Heber about that yeshiva in Temchete Mimen in Vilna.

20:39 Speaker 2 Yeah, so I, I find, I find that very, very interesting, um, because I, I just, you know, your, your, your father obviously eventually came to Lubavitch, or, or came ba- not came to Lubavitch, he was always a Lubavitcher, but came to 770 and ended up being a very big figure, um, in, in Crown Heights. Um, but he, he lived a very, um, individual or, or, or unique life, right? You, you were saying earlier he, um, he went, he went b- he couldn't go to yeshiva because of the war, he ended up going to school. Is that why he ended up going to school, or he always wanted to go?

21:16 Speaker 1 No. He, he learned, he could, he, he couldn't go to yeshiva, so his father learned with him.

21:21 Speaker 2 Right.

21:22 Speaker 1 Because his uncles were very much into health, into, uh-

21:27 Speaker 2 From, from his mother's side

21:28 Speaker 1 ... psychology. Yeah, from his mother's side. So therefore, they were about 13, I think. Uh, so it was a big family. So that gave him a feel to help others.

21:36 Speaker 2 I see.

21:36 Speaker 1 And in his nature, he was a person that, uh, was, I mean, you know, humanitarian and wa- wanted to help others. So that's when he studied medicine. And it wasn't easy because originally they didn't wanna accept him in school.

21:48 Speaker 2 Right.

21:49 Speaker 1 It seems like they didn't want any, uh, Jews in, you know.

21:52 Speaker 2 Right.

21:52 Speaker 1 Later, a we- a year later when a lot of them dropped out, that's when they accepted him. So he learned in Vilna and Strasbourg. Uh, he took it very seriously. Next, but I mean, European doctor was a different, uh, school.

22:04 Speaker 2 Was, wa- was that something, was that something that the, for Magen in those days, besides the hardship of the, of the anti-Semites, was it something for Magen like, how often you go to school? Or in that family that was more of a accepted thing already?

22:20 Speaker 1 Um, the family, on his mother's side, they were into it. But my father was, uh, I mean, he had a lot of limitations, uh, as, uh, studying medicine, and here you have Shabbos-

22:31 Speaker 2 Right

22:31 Speaker 1 ... here you have other things. I mean, and he was like, as they say

22:36 Speaker 2 Right

22:36 Speaker 1 ... he was like right on top of everything. It wasn't any questions, he would right away check with Rabbonim.

22:41 Speaker 2 Right.

22:42 Speaker 1 He was like a

22:43 Speaker 2 Right

22:44 Speaker 1 ... And, uh, people remember him yet from Krakow, how he davened, and he was near the Aron Kodesh. Um, the Rebbe once said to him in later years, "You are walking on a tightrope, Halacha and medicine. It's a, it's a difficult situation," the Rebbe told him. Like, you know, you have to take in consideration both.

23:01 Speaker 2 Right.

23:02 Speaker 1 Uh, so but he always mastered that. In fact, when he came here to United States, uh, 1950, '55, I don't think it ever happened before, he made a conference of religious doctors.

23:14 Speaker 2 Yes. Yes, I read that in the book.

23:15 Speaker 1 Yeah. 25 peak doctors came.

23:18 Speaker 2 And the, the-

23:19 Speaker 1 It was a big

23:19 Speaker 2 ... and the Rebbe sent him a letter also, right?

23:21 Speaker 1 A letter, yeah. A letter addressing the, the, the, the, the group of doctors in Hebrew and in English, and it's, uh, the Rebbe speaks there about prevention, he speaks there about the positive feelings of a patient. Very interesting tips. This is in summer 1955.

23:39 Speaker 2 Let's so, le- let's get back to that, let's get back to that, um, later. Um, I w- let, your, your, so your fa- your fa- your father goes to school to become a doctor, um, and you said that he, he has to, he has to the entire time be very careful about, about, in a sense, balancing these two worlds that, especially in those days, was, was not, was not, uh-

24:05 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

24:05 Speaker 2 ... built to go together at all.

24:07 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

24:08 Speaker 2 Um, what, did he ever talk to you about that? Did he ever describe it to you?

24:14 Speaker 1 Not really. No. He never spoke about, uh... I did find in his notes, uh, you know, he was in touch with Rabbonim, different things, but he never spoke with me about, you know, what it meant in school. Um, I do know that somebody once told me from Krakow who wanted their son should go to school in a certain city, I think it was in Paris, in France, and my father says, "I'll check it out." And he checked it out, he came back, he says, "It's not for him." So my father saw all these, the trials, these nisyonos, these different tests that a, experiences that a person could have, and, uh, for a certain person my father felt it, it wasn't right. It, it just, it, it, it wasn't advisable. But my father himself was very strong, he was a very disciplined person, and he, he like held in very strong, and he, uh, Baruch Hashem, he managed with the, with, with the schedules and everything going on in the school. In that time, it was a little different than the United States, but he managed.

25:19 Speaker 2 That's what I want to ask you. Where did he get the trust for himself to go to school? 'Cause I, I think you told me that also when we met last time, that he, he discouraged people later on because he understood what was so challenging about it. Why did he trust himself? Why do you think he trusted himself?

25:39 Speaker 1 My father, Bechal, when he wanted to do something, and he, he felt he can do it, he went for it. If he, i-if he felt that he cannot do it, he just moved on, moved on from it because he knew exactly what he should have to do, what not. I mean-

25:55 Speaker 2 Uh.

25:55 Speaker 1 In fact, you know, I, I to- once told my father there are certain people that they can't look at blood, so they can't become doctors. My father said he also had that.

26:04 Speaker 2 Really?

26:05 Speaker 1 Yeah, but he says he overcame it. Father was a very, very disciplined person in everything, and he pushed it, really built himself up in a way that any challenge that he had, which he felt it has to be overcome, he managed.

26:21 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

26:23 Speaker 1 If it was something important to him that he felt this is mammoth negeia, either halacha or, or saving people, as he did in Shanghai.

26:32 Speaker 2 You used a very interesting word earlier. You called him a humanitarian. You know, that, that is not a word that I am familiar or used to hearing as a description of a Hasid. You know, humanitarian are the people that go to Africa and -

26:49 Speaker 1 Okay. Okay

26:49 Speaker 2 ... you know what I mean?

26:50 Speaker 1 Okay. So I, I'll actually-

26:51 Speaker 2 So I'm not, I'm not catching you on a, on a, on a word. Uh-

26:53 Speaker 1 No, actually, if it's a word, talk, uh.

26:55 Speaker 2 It's not a bad word.

26:56 Speaker 1 Yeah, but-

26:57 Speaker 2 No, but it's, it's usually very-

26:57 Speaker 1 I, I'm, humanitarian, I mean, to me it says he liked people.

27:01 Speaker 2 Right.

27:02 Speaker 1 He tried to help people. He listened to people. He, uh, had patients that came to him, and he ga- told them exactly what to do.

27:12 Speaker 2 Right.

27:12 Speaker 1 An hour later, he calls them up, he says, "I thought it over, and I think this will be better for you." So this is how he was, like, very involved in the person's life and the person's experience, and people are amazed. Like, would you have a doctor today that'll call up and say, "You know what? I think there's a better way to do it"?

27:29 Speaker 2 Right.

27:29 Speaker 1 He was always thinking what could he do, how could he improve something, how could he enhance a person's health. It was part of his whole sitting and thinking. A lot of his-

27:40 Speaker 2 I'm sure if he did.

27:41 Speaker 1 I'm sure if he did, mammoth involved in every detail.

27:44 Speaker 2 So, see, what, what I'm trying to get at, or I'm trying to understand from you is that, you know, 'cause I'm trying to understand, here's this, here, here's this bachar, right? And then eventually, uh, uh, he, he got married a bit later on in life, right? But a, a young man who, who decides to become a doctor, you know, even though he's still, you know, a frumid, a Lubavitch Hasid in his own way because it's an unusual circumstance. What is, like, the... What is, what is the, like, the dominant, uh, striving in his life, right? He, he's not trying to be a fancy baubas with a lot of money, from what you're telling me. Like, that's not why he's becoming a doctor, right?

28:30 Speaker 1 Right.

28:30 Speaker 2 What, what is he after? Like, what is his m-what's his magmose? What is, what is he, what is he striving for?

28:37 Speaker 1 Yeah.

28:37 Speaker 2 And you're, you're, you're saying that it's, he possibly cared about people.

28:40 Speaker 1 He cared about people, and in essence, he could have been a scientist. He was doing research. He was in touch with, uh, the Yale University. It was, uh, Howard Cushing.

28:52 Speaker 2 Yeah, I saw that one.

28:52 Speaker 1 He's a top, uh, neurosurgeon of the century. And my father was doing experiments and research, and he was sending the reports to the United States. It was Connecticut. And he was responding back and saying, you know, "It's interesting, this observation you have, Dr. Zelikson." I mean-

29:07 Speaker 2 Very obscure field, right?

29:09 Speaker 1 You have... Yeah. Yeah. It was in the pituitary, and it was about hypertension. It was different articles that he wrote. And Hasidim who knew him here in the United States or they knew him from Poland, they said he could have easily been a scientist. He had an original mind.

29:25 Speaker 2 Right.

29:26 Speaker 1 Always came up. I mean, even doctors from here said, "Dr. Zelikson has an original mind, and he can, he can be superb in everything." But instead, he decided to help people, to, to be a doctor physically to help people.

29:40 Speaker 2 Wow.

29:40 Speaker 1 That was his, uh, chayas. And, uh, and as you mentioned, money was not a thing by him at all. It was poshit, uh, uh, e-e-either "" or is it because he saw by his father that his father also-

29:56 Speaker 2 Right

29:56 Speaker 1 ... helped people, uh, but this was his nature.

30:00 Speaker 2 I, I, I, I, what's so interesting to me and why I'm sitting on it a little bit is, is, you know, on one hand, it's so unusual, and on the other hand, it makes so much sense, right? On one hand, like, how many Hasidim back in that day, in that time became doctors? Probably only him. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know everybody, but-

30:19 Speaker 1 Yeah, in those years it was very-

30:21 Speaker 2 I never heard, I never heard-

30:22 Speaker 1 Somebody mammoth, a Hasid born a Lubavitcher, and, um, yeah, it was, uh, unusual.

30:27 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. I remember the first time we met, I, I assumed when I asked you, I said, "If- when did your father come to Lubavitch?" Right? I assumed that he must have Right.

30:35 Speaker 1 Or Tшуvan.

30:36 Speaker 2 Or Tшуvan, no, or, or Tкумана.

30:38 Speaker 1 Or, or, yeah, or, or came from another city.

30:40 Speaker 2 Yeah, but Lubavitchers aren't doctors in those days, right? He told me, "No, no, no, he comes from Lubavitch," right? So on one hand, it's very unusual. On the other hand, the way you're explaining it, it makes a lot of sense. What do you mean? He was, he comes from a Hasidismish bachar. They-- There's a lot of Abba Yisroel and, and, and, and Hasidim and, and just caring about other people, "" putting other people first. And the way, and he had a mind for medicine, clearly. His family had a history of medicine, so that's what he did. But there's, there's something very, very like Glatt-ic about it-

31:12 Speaker 1 Right

31:12 Speaker 2 ... in a way.

31:13 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah

31:13 Speaker 2 Even though it sounds like a student almost.

31:15 Speaker 1 Right. They were-- The, his uncles, for example, were not mamish medical doctors or psychology, psychiatrist-

31:21 Speaker 2 Right

31:21 Speaker 1 ... whatever it was. But it was in a theater that, and my father had it inborn in him-

31:27 Speaker 2 Right

31:27 Speaker 1 ... that, uh, to help people.

31:29 Speaker 2 But what's also interesting is that once he came to America, you said that he, he discouraged people from, from following this path.

31:37 Speaker 1 No, it was in Poland itself-

31:40 Speaker 2 Right

31:40 Speaker 1 ... when somebody asked him in the, in his community that their son wants to become a doctor.

31:45 Speaker 2 Yes, I understand. But you told me last time that he would discourage people also here.

31:49 Speaker 1 Here-

31:50 Speaker 2 Not so much

31:51 Speaker 1 ... not so much. No, I don't think people asked, and, um, I don't think-- I didn't hear anything. I mean, there was a lot going on, uh, talking about private things with people. My father Chál didn't discuss at home anything.

32:04 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

32:04 Speaker 1 And on the other hand, he once mentioned to me, he never mentioned names, but he, he mentioned a case, a scenario of a father turning to my father as a psychologist. His f- son is a kleptomaniac. He's, uh, constantly stealing. Is there anything he can do for it? So my father was a medical doctor, but because my father s- as a European doctor, he also understood psychology, so he would give advice to people.

32:38 Speaker 2 Right.

32:39 Speaker 1 So, uh, it was, uh, basically, I mean, he knew everything. He, he, he, uh, as they say, Chassidim, uh, passed away a few years ago in Crown Heights, famous Chassid. He said to me that in the past when a person went to a doctor, the doctor knew everything, every part of the body. Today it's, uh, you go to a foot doctor, you go to a, to a heart doc, cardiologist, you go to a-

33:09 Speaker 2 Right

33:09 Speaker 1 ... every, every, every kind of that, lung doctor. Says then, a pulmonary doctor. Today, y- So they, so he once said to the doctor, this Chassid, he says, "Doctor, why are you cutting me apart into separate sections?"

33:20 Speaker 2 Right.

33:20 Speaker 1 "I, I want you treat me as a whole."

33:23 Speaker 2 Right.

33:23 Speaker 1 But in those years, in my father's time, although my father Takan knew everything, but out of modesty, his profession was throat, stomach, um, it was, there were three things that he, uh, he was a prof-- uh, that he practiced, and other things, his modesty, he always would send to an expert.

33:44 Speaker 2 Hmm.

33:45 Speaker 1 And he would sometimes go to the expert, that person in Manhattan, and the expert would sometimes have no idea exactly how to deal with it. He would come back to my father, and my father would tell him what to do. There's a story, it's a famous story that I heard from someone, that they heard from the person, that my father, he came once to my father for a visit. And my father, uh, told, uh, um, gave him the diagnosis, and he felt, this person felt like, uh, my father took a few dollars. He felt he wanted a, get an opinion from a doctor in Manhattan, uh, taking the, uh, taking big money makes him a reputation. So he went to the other, to another doctor. Came to the other doctor in Manhattan, and, uh, after he examines him, he says to him, um, "Wait in the, in my office. I'll be with you in a minute." The doctor gets on the phone in the other room and says, "Dr. Zelikson, what do you think about this case?" The pill, and he asks him, "How much is it?" Two hundred and fifty dollars. So he didn't realize, because my father, with his modesty, the Rebbe once said he's a lamadvovnik. My father, with his modesty, never boasted. "Go to an expert. I don't wanna say anything." But if he saw the person is lost, they came back to him, and then he was the one that came out with solution.

35:08 Speaker 2 One second. You just said that, you said, you also said, uh,

35:11 Speaker 1 Hmm

35:12 Speaker 2 ... that he was a lamadvovnik. Uh, that was something that the Rebbe said often about people?

35:15 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said it, uh, often, I don't know. But I know that the Rebbe mentioned it in Yechidas to my mother. In regards to a certain inyan that there's no day, there's no night. So the Rebbe said, "" That's the way the Rebbe said it.

35:30 Speaker 2 And your mother told you this story?

35:32 Speaker 1 My mother told me the story. I heard it from her.

35:33 Speaker 2 After, after he passed away or, or, or-

35:36 Speaker 1 No, it was in nineteen sixty-eight,

35:40 Speaker 2 No, no, but she told you the story after he passed away?

35:43 Speaker 1 Yeah. No, before.

35:44 Speaker 2 Before.

35:46 Speaker 1 And-

35:46 Speaker 2 And, and, and he, he was ever, he ever paid attention to this story or?

35:51 Speaker 1 Nah, I don't think it, uh... He, he mamish demanded of himself everything is

36:00 Speaker 2 Hmm

36:00 Speaker 1 ... He never took credit for things. He was always, uh, you know, always very, very disciplined and, you know,

36:09 Speaker 2 Hmm

36:10 Speaker 1 ... He didn't speak much. He wasn't like a person who sits down and tells stories. He would sit by a meal. He would like to hear a drvar Torah, and that's it. After that, he would bench. If there were some stories that he had experiences with the Rebbe that he, he remembered or better yet I asked him about, he would clarify it.

36:31 Speaker 2 He didn't like to talk? He was not a friendly person?

36:33 Speaker 1 He was a-- With patients, he would talk everything, but he did not... It wasn't like a extra word. I mean, I once heard a word somebody said.

36:42 Speaker 2 Did he, did, did-

36:42 Speaker 1 I don't know where it comes from. Somebody says the

36:43 Speaker 2 ... did-

36:44 Speaker 1 He was very careful

36:45 Speaker 2 I'm saying, uh, did he take you on trips when you were a kid? Did he-

36:49 Speaker 1 He took us on trips, yeah. As little kids, he took us on trips to park, this, that. He would buy toys for us. I mean, mamish-

36:55 Speaker 2 It wasn't like

36:56 Speaker 1 No, no, no

36:57 Speaker 2 ...

36:58 Speaker 1 Not at all that. But I'm saying in time, he didn't go on vacation much.

37:02 Speaker 2 Right.

37:03 Speaker 1 He felt that he can't leave the community. You don't see anybody like that. He cannot leave the community summer because he's responsible for the community.

37:12 Speaker 2 It sounds like, it sounds almost like Poshut, uh, uh, Pshitis, like a certain Pshitis. Like everything just makes sense. Everything is just, uh, n- no No, uh, just, just-

37:24 Speaker 1 A shita

37:25 Speaker 2 ... w- w- what needs to be i- is, is what it is

37:27 Speaker 1 Yes, it is

37:28 Speaker 2 This was-

37:28 Speaker 1 And it was if he went for vacation, he went for a few days, then he came back

37:32 Speaker 2 Hmm

37:32 Speaker 1 He was a doctor in camp for a year, one summer or two summers

37:36 Speaker 2 Ganesrol

37:37 Speaker 1 Ganesrol, in the early '60s, I remember. Um, but generally he, he went where he was needed. He was a doctor originally in the 1940s in Teterboro Das, yeshiva there

37:50 Speaker 2 When he first came to America

37:51 Speaker 1 Yeah

37:51 Speaker 2 So, so let's, let's, let's not skip. There's a very big part of the story here that we're, that we're skipping, um, that between him going to school in Europe and coming to America, he had a very significant detour in, in, uh, Japan and Shanghai

38:07 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

38:08 Speaker 2 And when I was reading the book, a, in Shanghai he was living with the, with the Lubavitchers there, right? And that, in a way, that was the first time that he was living-

38:16 Speaker 1 Um, I think in Japan he already had a chaif. For six months he was there in Kobe

38:21 Speaker 2 Right

38:21 Speaker 1 So it could be that he was already in that neighborhood, and then from there they went to Shanghai

38:27 Speaker 2 And he lived with the Lubavitcher, with the-

38:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, he lived in the yard-

38:30 Speaker 2 Only Yidden lived

38:30 Speaker 1 ... where the yeshiva was-

38:31 Speaker 2 Right

38:31 Speaker 1 ... in the same yard

38:33 Speaker 2 Right. And it seems like that's when it became clear to other people that even though in, in some ways he didn't look like a Lubavitcher, right? Uh, I don't think he had a beard at that time

38:43 Speaker 1 He didn't have a beard, but he, uh, he grabbed it-

38:45 Speaker 2 But, but they understood, they understood that this is a Lubavitcher Chassid

38:48 Speaker 1 He's a Lubavitcher, yeah

38:49 Speaker 2 Right

38:49 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, they knew, uh, they knew that he was a Lubavitcher. He was there five years

38:53 Speaker 2 Right

38:54 Speaker 1 And, um, and they turned to him as a doctor, and, uh, the Mir Yeshiva turned to him, and the Chachmi Lublin Yeshiva turned to him. All the yeshivas turned to him, the students. There were also Buddhists that came to him

39:08 Speaker 2 Right

39:09 Speaker 1 He was a Yidden Buddhist. Uh, he was, he was very accepted. There were, there were-

39:14 Speaker 2 Buddhists, you mean the communists?

39:15 Speaker 1 Uh-

39:15 Speaker 2 The Bundists

39:16 Speaker 1 ... uh, the Bunde- the Yidden who were, I think they were Buddhists

39:20 Speaker 2 Oh, Buddhists

39:21 Speaker 1 Buddhists

39:22 Speaker 2 No, 'cause there was also Bundists, right?

39:23 Speaker 1 Oh, no, no, Buddhists

39:24 Speaker 2 The, the-

39:25 Speaker 1 That's what I once heard

39:26 Speaker 2 There, there were Yidden in Shanghai that considered themselves Buddhists or not Yidden

39:30 Speaker 1 Buddhists. Well, I don't know what they were, but they were-

39:33 Speaker 2 They were Yidden or-

39:33 Speaker 1 They, they came

39:34 Speaker 2 They were Yidden or not Yidden?

39:35 Speaker 1 I am not sure, but they came to my father as a doctor because they trusted him. In fact, uh, somebody, Rabbi Fuchs, who was in Shanghai, told me that there were the two sections, the Shanghai, like Brooklyn and Manhattan

39:47 Speaker 2 Right

39:48 Speaker 1 In Manhattan, they had older senior doctors-

39:51 Speaker 2 Right

39:51 Speaker 1 ... and in the other section in Shanghai, they had, uh, the Mirri, the, which was the ghetto actually, they were living in ghetto. They had one, uh, they had the, they had a few doctors. My father was amongst them. When a doctor would come to the section, to the, a senior doctor, they would ask one question: "Were you referred by Dr. Zeligson?"

40:11 Speaker 2 Huh.

40:11 Speaker 1 If they said yes, they said, "We have nothing to add."

40:14 Speaker 2 In the Chassidic section of town

40:16 Speaker 1 In the Chassidic section, the senior doctors. They knew that my father diagnosed it, and whatever it is, they can't say anything additional

40:24 Speaker 2 Look, I, I, I don't know if this is appropriate to say, and I don't know how you're gonna react to it, but there's, there's such a striking parallel to your father's story with the Rebbe's story. Before the Rebbe became Rebbe, when the Rebbe was, was, was, was more private and the, the parallels of a person who is clearly a goy, right? I'm not, I'm not trying to say they're the same person, but the, there's a parallel here, right? Where clearly a genius, right? Clearly a, a, a man of what he's doing. Uh, clearly a, a, a, a elevated Yid, and yet extremely private and, and not looking to make a tzimmes at all, right? He, he, like he knew that he could help a lot of people, and whoever came to him, he helped, but he never made a, a scene

41:23 Speaker 1 Right. Right. I never saw it that way, and I generally, I probably, you know, it's like two different people, but-

41:30 Speaker 2 Of course

41:30 Speaker 1 I, I, but my father was in a sense very modest. Nobody had any idea even who was the Rebbe's doctor those years, and they would think it's someone in Manhattan

41:44 Speaker 2 Right

41:44 Speaker 1 The payot, the calls would come through the house by us. How many times I picked up the phone when the Rebbetzin called? Um-

41:51 Speaker 2 Rebbetzin would call about the Rebbe

41:52 Speaker 1 Yeah, or about herself. Um-

41:55 Speaker 2 And they would come to him to, how, he would go to their house?

41:59 Speaker 1 Right, he would go to the house or see the Rebbe in 770

42:01 Speaker 2 Right

42:03 Speaker 1 There was one time, he's calling about privacy. There was one time that the Rebbe told my father when he was leaving, um, when the Rebbe was leaving the house for 770, that my father should not come in the same time to 770. Uh, people shouldn't realize that he's coming from the house, that you're coming from me, "Az ikh kumt fun mir." The privacy that the Rebbe having his health-

42:23 Speaker 2 Right

42:23 Speaker 1 ... he did not want in any way, you know, people to-

42:26 Speaker 2 He didn't want people to know that your father was coming from his house

42:29 Speaker 1 Right

42:29 Speaker 2 'Cause the Rebbe's house-

42:30 Speaker 1 People start talking, health, my sister

42:32 Speaker 2 Right

42:32 Speaker 1 The Rebbe didn't want anything

42:33 Speaker 2 Yeah. The, the, it, it's, it, look, uh-

42:36 Speaker 1 Yeah

42:37 Speaker 2 It was, to, to me it almost like it makes sense that, that, that the Rebbe would trust your fa- it just the, the, the way of life-

42:44 Speaker 1 He was a demuchter person. He was a very close person-

42:46 Speaker 2 Did the-

42:46 Speaker 1 Even when it came to health issues

42:48 Speaker 2 Right

42:48 Speaker 1 It could be years later, 14 years, there was a certain issue that happened in the '60s. In '78 it came out. It's like, and nobody knew anything

42:57 Speaker 2 But sir, the-

42:57 Speaker 1 Not to the house, nowhere

42:58 Speaker 2 But it's not just that he was, that he was a, that he was a trust, that you could trust him with a secret. There was also, there's a certain, 'cause to me, there's a certain pele with, with, with the Rebbe. Like he knew that he was such, I'm talking about in the, when he was, before he became Rebbe. He knew that he was a massive Talmid Chacham. He knew that. But he, he, he, a- and you could say, "Well, if I, if I know so much, I, I need to go and tell the world and, and- Help people, you know, there's a, there's a-

43:28 Speaker 1 Fakerti in a sense, the Rebbe said that a short suit-

43:32 Speaker 2 Right, and he hid himself. He hid himself. And your father has a similar, there's a similar thing there. I don't know what it is exactly, but-

43:38 Speaker 1 I-i-it's-- I don't know. I, I see it my fa- my father, I would say independently. I would not connect that he was a modest person. He knew a lot, and people didn't realize.

43:47 Speaker 2 Right.

43:48 Speaker 1 People didn't realize. After he passed away, they realized how much he knew medicine-

43:51 Speaker 2 Right

43:51 Speaker 1 ... and how much he was a Talmid Chacham.

43:53 Speaker 2 It's almost like true genius-

43:55 Speaker 1 I mean-

43:55 Speaker 2 ... a-and true, true, true, true, true

43:59 Speaker 1 The modesty.

44:00 Speaker 2 Right.

44:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, uh, B'makom g'dulah se'atah meytzam basim museh, that's where you find his modesty.

44:05 Speaker 2 Right.

44:05 Speaker 1 He was -- the Rebbe once said about him that if he would be amongst, uh, the, the, the literature world, he would be one of the top there.

44:13 Speaker 2 In, in, in Torah?

44:14 Speaker 1 In Torah.

44:14 Speaker 2 In Torah. Yeah, I mean, that was astonishing. You open up the book, and you think that you're going to hear about Dr. Zelikson medicine, and you hear about that, but then you see a diagram. I put it on the internet the other day. This diagram of, uh, he, he -- W-was -- Did he draw this during the war?

44:30 Speaker 1 He drew it, no, in 1935.

44:32 Speaker 2 What? So before the war?

44:34 Speaker 1 Yeah. And he sent it to-

44:35 Speaker 2 But it was a m-

44:36 Speaker 1 ... someone here in Queens.

44:37 Speaker 2 Yeah, but it was a medical school.

44:39 Speaker 1 Uh, it seems like in 1935, he was 28. He was already after medical school.

44:45 Speaker 2 But I'm saying he wasn't in yeshiva.

44:47 Speaker 1 No, he wasn't in yeshiva.

44:48 Speaker 2 He wasn't in yeshiva. A-a-and, and you have to, you have to see this diagram. He posted -- He, he draws a, a picture of an ox, and he -- every piece of anatomy of the ox, he has a Maramokim, and it's not the easy Maramokim.

45:03 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Maramokim in, in the Talmud and in the commentaries, the Poskim.

45:07 Speaker 2 Right. And Rashia, Alter, everywhere.

45:10 Speaker 1 A-and actually, this, an-another inyan comes in here about modesty, that he writes, he si- he writes anybody could make copies of it, and he signs his name.

45:22 Speaker 2 Ah, everybody can have it.

45:22 Speaker 1 Yeah, everybody can have it. Mechola, Avram Aba Ben Mecholar, you know, signs his name. Now, that's interesting because he wrote into the Rebbe, he sent this into the Rebbe.

45:30 Speaker 2 At the time?

45:31 Speaker 1 Uh, in the '70s.

45:33 Speaker 2 Oh, so years later he shared it to-

45:35 Speaker 1 Yeah, then he sent it to the Rebbe. So I don't know exactly what it implied, if he asked if it should be publi- if, if, if he, if it should be published. Whatever. The Rebbe says, "Just give it over that a Rav, leader, Rosh, should just give a, you know, a review, a quick review." So it was given to Rabbi Yisroel Fikarski, who was a posek.

45:56 Speaker 2 Rashash of 770.

45:57 Speaker 1 Rashash of 770. And he looked at it over and says, "This is this, this is this. policial orden." So that's what my father wrote, Bas koma sargo on Rabbi Yisroel Fikarski. But when you look at it, it's mamish amazing. It's like a -- Actually, Hilchos Treifas, bochurim of 770 when they saw this, because there was a certain printer, it was gross, the printing, so he made big copies of it, large. And bochurim are learning Hilchos Treifas from this, this year-

46:25 Speaker 2 Right

46:25 Speaker 1 ... because it has it all. I spoke with someone who's in Argentina, Rabina Baumgarten.

46:29 Speaker 2 Sure.

46:29 Speaker 1 Yeah.

46:30 Speaker 2 Sure. I, I, I know Rabina.

46:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, Rabina. He says this was most helpful because it has it all in one picture.

46:35 Speaker 2 Right.

46:35 Speaker 1 It's not like they, they break it down-

46:37 Speaker 2 Right

46:37 Speaker 1 ... in different pages.

46:39 Speaker 2 So you're saying that he sent it in 1935 to a cousin-

46:41 Speaker 1 He sent it to a friend of hers, his, a friend, and for whatever reason, he sent it there, and after the war, he got it back.

46:50 Speaker 2 Ah, he sent the original to Queens.

46:51 Speaker 1 I think he sent it even, yeah.

46:52 Speaker 2 That's his how, that's how it survived the war.

46:54 Speaker 1 Survived the war, yeah.

46:55 Speaker 2 Wow.

46:55 Speaker 1 That's what we understand.

46:57 Speaker 2 Wow. So, so your, so your fa- your father gets, he g- he ends up escaping from, from Kraków to, uh, Japan, uh, some, a few-

47:08 Speaker 1 And they got sick on the way.

47:09 Speaker 2 Right.

47:09 Speaker 1 Was seasick, and my father treated them.

47:11 Speaker 2 Right.

47:12 Speaker 1 Um-

47:12 Speaker 2 Oh, there's another fascinating story in the book that one of the things that he punked happened to study in school in-

47:17 Speaker 1 Stomach

47:18 Speaker 2 ... in the stomach, right? They said, "Why are you studying this?" In the end, he saved the Yidden in Shanghai, right?

47:23 Speaker 1 Right. All the different diseases they had.

47:25 Speaker 2 Yeah.

47:25 Speaker 1 Dysentery-

47:26 Speaker 2 But specific, that specifically that-

47:28 Speaker 1 They decided stomach. Yeah.

47:29 Speaker 2 Right. Right. Yeah, but so he, he goes from, he goes from Poland to Japan and ends up in Shanghai, and he's there for a few years.

47:38 Speaker 1 He's there five years, yeah.

47:39 Speaker 2 Five years.

47:39 Speaker 1 From '41 to '46 to, uh-

47:41 Speaker 2 Right

47:41 Speaker 1 ... you know, '47.

47:42 Speaker 2 Right, and he's already in his thir- he's in his 30s at this point

47:45 Speaker 1 Yeah, he's from the la-- Yeah, he's from the last ones to leave-

47:47 Speaker 2 Right

47:48 Speaker 1 ... uh, Poland. Uh, I'm sorry.

47:51 Speaker 2 Shanghai.

47:51 Speaker 1 The last ones to leave Shanghai. And the Rebbe was publishing many Sfarim there in Shanghai. Chabad published Sfarim there in Shanghai.

48:01 Speaker 2 Right.

48:01 Speaker 1 And since my father was the last-

48:03 Speaker 2 For who? For the Lubav-

48:04 Speaker 1 For Chabad, yeah

48:04 Speaker 2 ... for the Lubavitch that lived there?

48:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. So actually, some of the Sfarim I have here. Uh, and, uh, Teires Chaim, Im Ribina, the whole bunch. And, um, Teires Yisroel. Okay, Teires Yisroel came actually, it says Shanghai Tuv Shin Vav also could be from there. And, um, when he came here, the, he got a call from the Rebbe. It was in wintertime, I think early '47. He got a call that he's gonna send a bocher to, um, pick up a set of Sfarim for the previous Rebbe. 'Cause my father brought a set for the previous Rebbe and for himself. So-

48:45 Speaker 2 From Shanghai?

48:46 Speaker 1 Yeah. So, uh, and, um-

48:49 Speaker 2 Why did he need this Sfarim from Shanghai? What's-

48:52 Speaker 1 The Rebbe printed Sfarim in Shanghai. Well, everybody knew about made in China, the Rebbe was the first one.

48:56 Speaker 2 Ah, he printed Sfarim-

48:57 Speaker 1 The Rebbe-

48:57 Speaker 2 ... in Shanghai for, for the-

48:59 Speaker 1 Chabad

48:59 Speaker 2 ... Lubavitch in America?

49:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. The Rebbe-

49:01 Speaker 2 Ah, I thought he was sending to Shanghai for the Chassidim in Shanghai.

49:03 Speaker 1 No, no. It was, it w- They printed it there because there was a base there. There was Chassidim there.

49:07 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

49:08 Speaker 1 So the 29 bochurim.

49:09 Speaker 2 Oh, it's cheaper there to print there than-

49:11 Speaker 1 Exactly.

49:12 Speaker 2 Wow.

49:12 Speaker 1 So they, uh-

49:13 Speaker 2 So they were already doing-

49:14 Speaker 1 Even when they were on the way back, the Rebbe was still sending. He wanted to print more Sfarim, but they were already coming back.

49:18 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

49:19 Speaker 1 So my father managed to get, uh, you know, there's some instructions to the printer. The Rebbe sent everything, uh-

49:27 Speaker 2 How did the printer in Shanghai already have, uh, Hebrew fonts? They arranged it.

49:31 Speaker 1 They, the, yeah, uh, it, it was, uh, offset. So, uh, he just needed offset.

49:36 Speaker 2 Ah, right.

49:36 Speaker 1 And they have on every, every beyten, every little bind of the page you have over here some, some Chinese. You can see some Chinese.

49:42 Speaker 2 Ah, yeah.

49:43 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

49:43 Speaker 2 I, you know, I, I grew up in Hong Kong, that's why I-

49:46 Speaker 1 Oh, so yeah

49:46 Speaker 2 ... I've been to Shanghai.

49:47 Speaker 1 Wow.

49:47 Speaker 2 It's very interesting.

49:47 Speaker 1 So the, so this is, is mamish, uh, uh, very interesting. So they printed it there. And the Rebbe mentioned it, the farbrengen, benigea the Sheva Brachos, Friediker Rebbe to bring him Sfarim that were published in Shanghai. I think the Rebbe mentioned then the 50 years anniversary, you know, at Kislav, Tuv Shin Lamed Tes.

50:05 Speaker 2 In Tuv Shin Lamed Tes?

50:07 Speaker 1 The Rebbe mentioned that during the Sheva Brachos they were bringing gifts to the Friediker Rebbe.

50:11 Speaker 2 Oh, so they were printing... Oh, wait, they were printing-

50:13 Speaker 1 They printed things, and the Rebbe got it-

50:15 Speaker 2 In, in Shanghai, in, in, in the, in the Peis already?

50:17 Speaker 1 Uh, not in the Peis, in the, in, in the Tof shins-

50:22 Speaker 2 Right

50:22 Speaker 1 ... to Tof shin wow.

50:23 Speaker 2 Ah, okay.

50:24 Speaker 1 But it seems like maybe it needs a little understanding because the previous Rebbe's anniversary was Tof shin zayin, summer 1947.

50:33 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

50:34 Speaker 1 He, he got married in 1897, so it's 1947, but they came winter. So I always had that question, like, "How does it work out?" Because I know my father brought a bunch of Sefarim already I said, but it could be there were some things that were completed later, and the Rebbe made sure the Friediker Rebbe should get it-

50:50 Speaker 2 Uh, 50 years to the Friediker Rebbe's-

50:52 Speaker 1 Wedding

50:53 Speaker 2 ... uh, wedding, they printed in Shanghai.

50:55 Speaker 1 Right.

50:55 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

50:55 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe said that, uh, that there were Sefarim that they brought in from Shanghai.

50:58 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

50:58 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe said that, that, um, it, it was something that they wanted to bring a simcha to the Friediker Rebbe, and the Rebbe says that's the only anniversary where we can find 50th anniversary the previous Rebbe.

51:15 Speaker 2 Hmm.

51:15 Speaker 1 Because the others were either younger or we don't know what took place.

51:19 Speaker 2 What, what did your father-- What did your f- Uh, you said your father did not speak much, but did he ever speak to you about the years in Shanghai? Was it, did he, did he-

51:28 Speaker 1 In fact-

51:29 Speaker 2 I, yes

51:30 Speaker 1 ... hmm, I wanted to put something together in his lifetime, just ask him questions beholo. And since the family wanted to have memoirs, so he did write up his birth and, uh, everything up to Shanghai. Shanghai, he didn't wanna speak about.

51:48 Speaker 2 He didn't wanna speak about it?

51:49 Speaker 1 Not wanna speak about it. He did mention-

51:51 Speaker 2 Why not?

51:53 Speaker 1 I don't know. Either because of certain aspects that took place there, whatever it is, uh, but he didn't, he didn't wanna, and nobody actually, the Bobov Zechorim, the older Bachurim kamma did not wanna speak about it. They spoke about-

52:05 Speaker 2 Really?

52:05 Speaker 1 ... the situations they went through. Uh, my father did mention, I think, that you couldn't drink water without cooking it. Um, there's different-

52:15 Speaker 2 Different-

52:15 Speaker 1 Liv- aspects. My father-

52:16 Speaker 2 You're talking about the gas misigas verekayten?

52:18 Speaker 1 Yeah, gas misigas vere-

52:19 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

52:20 Speaker 1 ... uh, difficulties. And my father, uh, uh, uh, there were diseases. There was cholera, there was typhus, there was malaria. I mean, there was a child needed to be inoculated for five diseases. Eight months old, she had to be inoculated.

52:34 Speaker 2 Uh, I guess my, uh, I guess what I'm, what I'm curious to know is did your father, did your father at that point for all, for all the difficulties that were going on, did, was there something that he, like he felt a, a new connection with this group of people? This was the first time that he was living with other Chassidim.

52:51 Speaker 1 My father in a sense-

52:52 Speaker 2 Or he was always the same person?

52:53 Speaker 1 He liked, he liked people, he liked to farbreng with people, but he was not, because he fe- felt mezah time and mezah, the, the value of time, he didn't, he wasn't like a social pers- a social, a club person.

53:08 Speaker 2 Right.

53:08 Speaker 1 To say it, an club person. He wasn't allowed to hangout here, hangout there. He knew the Rebbe's farbrengen, he went to the farbrengen. I mean-

53:14 Speaker 2 Oh, he would come to the farbrengens?

53:15 Speaker 1 Yeah. All the farbrengens he went. As late as they were, he went to farbrengens.

53:18 Speaker 2 But would he ever farbreng with other Chassidim?

53:20 Speaker 1 Uh, he, once a year, he would have a Melava Malka for his Yom HaLev of Nachamu, right after Tisha B'Av. He was born out of Tisha B'Av. So he would have Melava Nachamu, Melava Malka. Rab Meir Yitkin, Rab Asher Sassonkin, and other Chassidim, they would tell sipuri, and my father just enjoyed it because he used to-

53:35 Speaker 2 Where did he know them from? From Crown, from Crown Heights?

53:37 Speaker 1 From Crown Heights, yeah.

53:37 Speaker 2 He didn't know them from before?

53:38 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, from Crown Heights. There were certain people he knew from, from Shanghai, Rabbi Fuchs, Rabbi Shaya Lebranftstein, Rabbi Landau. Many people lived in Crown Heights, Rabbi Shimon Goldman. But when people came to my father, some of the people that he knew from Shanghai, he would have conversations with them, uh, talk with them. It was like you could see that there was a, a closeness between them.

53:59 Speaker 2 There was a closeness?

54:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. There are certain people my father spoke with them, uh, uh, certain people like just speaking a little of learning, he would ask, you know, "What beracha do you make on this cereal, that cereal?" Like halacha, out of the way, he would just discuss it. Uh, some people had, he had a different relationship with them. So some people knew him as a doctor, some people knew him as a Talmid Chacham.

54:23 Speaker 2 But-

54:23 Speaker 1 And people went over to me after he was Niftar. They said, "We had no idea who he is."

54:28 Speaker 2 Who knew him as a friend? Is my que-

54:30 Speaker 1 Rabbi Fuchs-

54:30 Speaker 2 Rabbi Fuchs

54:31 Speaker 1 ... knew him as a friend.

54:32 Speaker 2 They were close?

54:32 Speaker 1 All the, yeah, all the Shanghai, uh, knew him because he was there with them five years.

54:37 Speaker 2 Right.

54:37 Speaker 1 Rabbi Landau I interviewed, uh, before he was Niftar.

54:41 Speaker 2 They went through a lot together.

54:42 Speaker 1 Yeah. So they mamash, they were on the same boat, so they really knew, uh... He pashet, uh, uh, they knew him. They spoke very highly of him. I mean, Rabbi Fuchs once said, "I can speak a whole night about him."

54:54 Speaker 2 By on the same boat, do you literally mean the same boat? Right? Not just-

54:57 Speaker 1 Same boat and, uh-

54:58 Speaker 2 Not, not a, not adag mashal. Like literally the same boat.

55:00 Speaker 1 Mamash, I mean, they, they, they were on the same, right. Five years they were suffering all together in Shanghai. There were 29 Bachurim. My father said, this is one of the things he said about Shanghai, "They were called the B-29 bombers- "... because the previous Rebbe would constantly bomb the, the consul, consulate to get them visas." So he used to-

55:20 Speaker 2 Out of Shanghai

55:21 Speaker 1 ... yeah, out of Shanghai. So they used to call them the B-29 bombers. My father once mentioned that. Very few things my father mentioned about Shanghai. What he did-

55:28 Speaker 2 So he was, he, he was one of the 29? He was considered one of the 29?

55:31 Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't know. There is a picture of all of them. I don't remember because my father didn't learn in the yeshiva there. He was, he davened, he, he, he was in the same chutzar, in the same yard they had a house there, an apartment. He would sit and learn at night. Rabbi Fuchs would tell me that my father would go in at night, take Sefarim from the yeshiva. He says, Zova said, he said, "He didn't take it for exercise." He says, "Pashet, sits and learn, and at night he would, in the morning he would return it." So he has like he was a very close person, a close, uh, uh-

56:05 Speaker 2 You see, it, it, it's, it's a stunning story. It's ups- uh, it's, that's a ...</v

56:10 Speaker 1 Yeah

56:10 Speaker 2 ... no footprints.

56:16 Speaker 1 I mean-

56:16 Speaker 2 No footprints.

56:17 Speaker 1 Here in the United States, which I can testify, he had a stroke when he was in his 40s.

56:24 Speaker 2 He had a stroke?

56:25 Speaker 1 Stroke. And his grandfather passed away, he's named after his grandfather, when he was 45.

56:31 Speaker 2 So it runs in the family.

56:32 Speaker 1 So it was in the family that, uh, so it was after the war, so my father had a stroke. There's a berachah from the Rebbe. There's also sort of a me- a mefas. And Baruch Hashem, he came out of it, and the Rebbe encouraged him to go back to work and very much like to get back on his feet. And, uh, the Rebbe told him to be careful mit our health, different tips. And nevertheless, his whole schedule all the years, as far as we remember, he would, he would get up in the morning, 7:30. He would prepare for davening. He would daven in 770, the Bachar minyan, 9:30. Uh, 10 o'clock was Krias HaTorah if it was Monday or Thursday. He would then be in 770. He had his little corner there. People would come to, to be checked out. And-

57:24 Speaker 2 He checked out patients there?

57:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. They'll say sh- people that didn't come to his house, he checked out there. And he, um, and sometimes he didn't need much to check out. Like, well, Marshall, you had a group of, of Chabad going to Australia, and the Rebbe wanted the condition was, one of the things was going to a doctor. And the Rebbe mentioned they should check by my father. Bachar came to my father. Today he's, uh, he mentioned the story many times. He's in Montreal, a manay in the school, Rabbi Yossel Minkovitz.

57:53 Speaker 2 Oh, yes.

57:54 Speaker 1 So he says, "Came to my father to check out. You can think a whole thorough." My father looks in his eyes, everything in order, the 10th again.

58:04 Speaker 2 Managed.

58:04 Speaker 1 That was it. That's the way medicine worked in the past, you know. He used to look in the eyes-

58:10 Speaker 2 He could see the eyes?

58:10 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, the Gemara says that the eyes is the reflection of the body. So basically, the Rebbe would sometimes come out in the gan edina atachren, would ask different things,

58:25 Speaker 2 Per- per- personal things or?

58:26 Speaker 1 Not personal things. The letters that he got. And so there was one time the Rebbe walked out with a, with a telegram, and he asked my father a certain, certain again, if there's any, nothing, anything new in medicine. My father was, as mentioned, busy a whole day. Uh, he was in 770, then he started to go home. He came home 3 o'clock. This is after doing home visits also. Uh, 3 o'clock, he had a whole line of people waiting for him in the house. He didn't feel comfortable to sit down and eat. He had, he had very, very refined manners. I feel, uh, to take something to eat, nothing. He had a few things that he took along, something to nibble on in shul that he took along, but he couldn't sit and eat while people were there. And that's how it went. And then if there was an emergency, there was no Atzalah then, everything came to him. About 10, 11 o'clock, when things started to slow down, he sat down and learned. Learned till about 4:00 in the morning.

59:21 Speaker 2 And then get up again 7:30.

59:22 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. And the, the learning was basically Gemara. He wrote comments on Gemara. He wrote comments on ze- on the Tanya. The Rebbe asked him for the Tanya, and the Tanya actually is in the Rebbe's library today.

59:34 Speaker 2 The Rebbe asked him for his Tanya with the, with his permission?

59:35 Speaker 1 For Tanya, he wrote-- He was learning Tanya together. They were learning with Rabbi Moshe Rubin from Montreal. And Rabbi Moshe R- Rubin heard the Biurim from Rabbi Yitzchak, from Isaac Baruch, who was a mashpia in yeshiva. And in addition to that, my father בכלל was very into citing sources for everything.

59:53 Speaker 2 Right.

59:54 Speaker 1 So במילא he saw every expression in Tanya, he has a source. He was a book in Tanakh, my father. Learned Tanya, learned, uh, uh, Gemara every night, learned Rambam. Uh, every time when he learned Gemara, he would always like to see the Psak Halachah in the Rambam. He would go to the Rambam to see how it finalizes. He had his Seder HaLimud. And, um, he, uh, the Rebbe asked him for the Tanya. My father gave it to him. It could very well be that this was similar to a Tanya the Rebbe wanted to publish in 1954 with all the commentaries. I don't know, but it, the Rebbe was like exploring then different Tanyas. And years later, I think it was the '80s, my father came to the Rebbe and told the Rebbe that he would like to have the Tanya for a short time. He has to write it over because he didn't make copies of it. So the Rebbe said, "You'll go into the library. Rabbi Levin is there. Everything is organized, and you'll find the Tanya." So you go into a Lubavitch, uh, aguch library looking for a Tanya. You have shelves and bookshelves.

1:00:58 Speaker 2 Right.

1:00:58 Speaker 1 They found it. My father said a week, he wrote over the commentaries, so it was left with him, and he returned the Tanya to the library.

1:01:06 Speaker 2 Huh.

1:01:07 Speaker 1 So my father wrote on Chumash. My father wrote different things, if it's meforshim or something. But he made comments, correcting things, you know. By the margin, he would make comments. If in a maimer there was a certain Roshonteves, which wasn't so known, he would write abbreviation of the, the Roshonteves. It was-- He was poshit- studying things poshit le'il. I mean, the maimarim that came out from the previous Rebbe, deep maimarim in the late '40s, uh, kuntes Vayivjanf. So I once heard it from Rabbi Leib Posner, zol zei gezunt. He said he once asked my father when he gave a certain inyan that's mentioned in a maimer, when he get a certain nerve, a certain ale something, and a very deep inyan. So he asked my father, "Is anything known in medicine about it?" My father said, "No. It's like a very delicate thing. It's not like something that they can put their hands on it." But the maimarim, they were very dakas dikeinyan and very delicate matters. So, uh, my father poshit learned maimarim, learned, uh, everything that came out, he learned, uh- It was, uh, I mean, very disciplined.

1:02:14 Speaker 2 Well, s-describe a little bit. So he comes to America after these five years in Shanghai. Um-

1:02:21 Speaker 1 Well, he needs to be, get a license, needs to get a license in the United States.

1:02:26 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:26 Speaker 1 He has to take over all the tests.

1:02:28 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:29 Speaker 1 The while he learned English and took over the tests, and then got a certificate as a doctor.

1:02:36 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:38 Speaker 1 And writes into the previous Rebbe late 1949 that he is a certified physician. And the Rebbe, Friediker Rebbe writes him a broche. He should be, he should have atzlache in refuah, and also be mestader himself for a shidduch, finding a shidduch, finding a soulmate.

1:02:57 Speaker 2 He's already in his 30s, right?

1:02:59 Speaker 1 This is, yeah. So it's basically late 1949, Yud-- Tishrei 5708, m-months before Yut Zvat.

1:03:08 Speaker 2 Right.

1:03:08 Speaker 1 And it's interesting, in the bottom of the letter, which for whatever reason, I don't know, just my eyes didn't catch it, the previous Rebbe signs the letter not just Mevoreche.

1:03:20 Speaker 2 Right.

1:03:21 Speaker 1 Not just Mevoreche, Mechabdi u'mevoreche.

1:03:23 Speaker 2 Wow.

1:03:24 Speaker 1 Which is a very unusual expression. Mechabdi, that he honors him and rever-revers- reveres him and blesses him.

1:03:31 Speaker 2 What was your yachas up to that point, the Friediker Rebbe and your father?

1:03:35 Speaker 1 When my father came to the United States, he was considered a junior doctor, and there was another doctor that was seeing the Friediker Rebbe. And as far as I understand from people, that the Rebbe would take along my father to monitor the Friediker Rebbe for every few days.

1:03:52 Speaker 2 So that, that's what I wanted to ask you. Y-where did your father, where did the Rebbe know your father from? Where w-how did that start?

1:03:58 Speaker 1 Okay, the-

1:03:58 Speaker 2 You're saying the publishing in, in Shanghai.

1:04:01 Speaker 1 The publishing in Shanghai was not-- He knew my father, that he brought the seforim.

1:04:05 Speaker 2 Right. But I'm just-

1:04:05 Speaker 1 But there was no-

1:04:06 Speaker 2 Personal

1:04:06 Speaker 1 ... real relationship. The relationship began with the previous Rebbe in 1936.

1:04:12 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:04:12 Speaker 1 My father was in Austria. The Friediker Rebbe was there. So the Friediker Rebbe-

1:04:17 Speaker 2 He's still in medical school at this point?

1:04:19 Speaker 1 Um, 1936, he's already finishing. I think he's doing research as-

1:04:24 Speaker 2 Okay

1:04:25 Speaker 1 ... and actually wrote articles and-

1:04:28 Speaker 2 Hmm

1:04:28 Speaker 1 ... and, um, actually his findings, there were like new, new things that he discovered, and also working with, uh, Professor Cushing. And this is what my father told me. He went into yechidas, and the previous Rebbe asked him: "What are you learning?" He says, "I'm learning nigla, and I'm learning chiddush, learning Tanya." I mean, this was something that was... So the previous Rebbe told him: "The Gemara says, 'Ochel v'lo shasa achilas dam.'

1:04:55 Speaker 2 Right.

1:04:55 Speaker 1 A person eats and doesn't drink, it's considered blood. Why? Because it wasn't digested. Nig- uh, eating is nigla. Chiddush is, uh, um, drinking is chiddush. Chiddush helps digest what he learns in nigla.

1:05:11 Speaker 2 Right.

1:05:12 Speaker 1 And the Friediker Rebbe continues: "You're a doctor. When you give someone a medication, you have to make sure he's able to digest it."

1:05:18 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:05:19 Speaker 1 And mainly also, and he's thinking of drinking. So this is the yechidas that he had in 1936, probably the first yechidas. Next time he saw the previous Rebbe was Bepaschas, 1947.

1:05:30 Speaker 2 When he came to America.

1:05:31 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:05:33 Speaker 2 So where did the yachas with the Rebbe ha-happen?

1:05:36 Speaker 1 The Rebbe was involved in everything by the Friediker Rebbe, so he became acquainted with the Friediker Rebbe.

1:05:42 Speaker 2 But it's more, it's more than that.

1:05:42 Speaker 1 But I don't know where-

1:05:43 Speaker 2 It's more than that, 'cause you're saying that, that when he came to America, the, the Rebbe was the one that brought him in to, to be the doctor and-

1:05:50 Speaker 1 Right, after a time, which means this is where it began. It began that the, the, the, the Rebbe asked that my father should monitor the Friediker Rebbe. How did it all start? We don't know. We're the beginning of that.

1:06:04 Speaker 2 Your father never spoke about this?

1:06:05 Speaker 1 How? No. How it was introduced, we don't know.

1:06:07 Speaker 2 Th-there's a yachas there that's very deep.

1:06:09 Speaker 1 And, and it's inter-- Yeah.

1:06:11 Speaker 2 There, there's a yachas there.

1:06:11 Speaker 1 There's definitely a, there's definitely a yachas, but not from Europe. It's mamish not from Europe.

1:06:16 Speaker 2 Not from, not from Europe. That's what I'm asking.

1:06:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. And it's interesting also because, I'm already talking about before the Nesi'os. I think it was in the year of the Avelos, in the previ-previous Rebbe. It was then that the rebbetzin not feel well, the rebbetzin Chaim Mushka. My father lived then-

1:06:37 Speaker 2 In Tosh Sin Yud, the rebbetzin-

1:06:38 Speaker 1 Tosh Sin Yud, a cold or something. There was something. And my father lived then where the Kehillah later became Union of Kingston.

1:06:46 Speaker 2 Upstairs?

1:06:47 Speaker 1 Uh, Kingston upstairs. He had an apartment. I don't exactly-- It seems like it was that building behind 770.

1:06:53 Speaker 2 Ah, you're talk- you're, you're talking-

1:06:55 Speaker 1 No, in, on, on, on Union Street

1:06:57 Speaker 2 Not where the Kehillahs, not where the Kehillahs now.

1:06:58 Speaker 1 No, no. On Union Street.

1:06:59 Speaker 2 Right behind 770.

1:06:59 Speaker 1 The old, the old Kehillah location on Union Street.

1:07:02 Speaker 2 Right.

1:07:02 Speaker 1 The Rebbe knocked on the door Shabbos morning, and he asked if my father can come along to see the rebbetzin. It was Shabbos morning, uh, a certain Shabbos morning. I don't know a date. And, um, he went along. And the Rebbe told my father when he came into the building, it was apartment building, 346 New York, that he should be careful not to take off his scarf because there's no air liv in the building. This is what I heard from my father.

1:07:29 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. Your father moved immediately to Crown Heights when he came to America?

1:07:34 Speaker 1 No. He lived by his sister for a while. I don't know how long. Then he moved to Union Street. And actually, it was their house, Union Street, where he was called Yut Zvat morning to come to 770, the Friediker Rebbe wasn't feeling well. And that's when he came running, I think from the backyard or from Kingston. Um, he was still there. When he got married, he moved to Eastern Park in Schenectady.

1:07:56 Speaker 2 Was he at the time the only doctor in the community?

1:07:59 Speaker 1 There were other doctors, not Lubavitch-

1:08:01 Speaker 2 Not Lubavitch

1:08:01 Speaker 1 ... not, not, uh, Frum even.

1:08:03 Speaker 2 Right.

1:08:03 Speaker 1 I don't think how religious they were. There were all kinds of doctors. There were pediatricians, there were different doctors.

1:08:08 Speaker 2 I mean, in those days, how many Frum doctors were there b'chol? Probably not-

1:08:11 Speaker 1 No. Rarely.

1:08:12 Speaker 2 Right.

1:08:12 Speaker 1 Mamish, uh, there were some doctors that in later years, they were a little envious of my father, you know. Uh, felt that my father is not doing conventional medicine, which actually is- Unfounded. It's, has no base to it because my father, everything was medical. And, um, my father would attend meetings. He was affiliated with Beth Israel, and the Rebbe would send many people to my father

1:08:37 Speaker 2 It seems like your father was very ahead of his times in the sense... 'Cause I was reading, I'm not a doctor, but I was reading in your b- in the book about him that he was very into vitamins, which makes sense 'cause he was a, uh, in the stomach, but he has a whole, he has like a whole writeup of nutrition, what you should eat and shouldn't eat-

1:08:54 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm

1:08:55 Speaker 2 ... which medicine is only now beginning to pay proper attention to, right?

1:09:00 Speaker 1 Right.

1:09:00 Speaker 2 He, he understood that, and it's also interesting because again, this is something that is so, it makes so much sense that, like, he's the Rebbe's doctor because it's all about, y- you know, y- your health, your health in a specific part of your body is dependent on your overall health, and then your overall health is dependent on your n- nafshatic health. It's a very wholesome picture and-

1:09:23 Speaker 1 This is the, the-

1:09:24 Speaker 2 This is why the Rebbe spoke-

1:09:25 Speaker 1 Right. This is the letter that the Rebbe wrote to the doctors then

1:09:27 Speaker 2 Right. Right. But your father, your father was very ahead of his times in that regard

1:09:32 Speaker 1 In fact-

1:09:32 Speaker 2 People in those days, I'm sure, looked at him like a little bit like, "What are you talking about?" But-

1:09:36 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah

1:09:37 Speaker 2 Yeah

1:09:37 Speaker 1 Bechol, people did not understand my father. Like the-

1:09:39 Speaker 2 Right

1:09:39 Speaker 1 ... way he was thinking was like he was ahead. I- i- in fact, we're talking about vitamins, Frida Vitamins opened up then also in the '40s-

1:09:49 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:09:49 Speaker 1 ... and he was their consultant

1:09:51 Speaker 2 Ah, really?

1:09:51 Speaker 1 Mamish. Dr. Zimmerman once told me, he says he was their consultant

1:09:56 Speaker 2 Right

1:09:56 Speaker 1 And after he was niftar he wrote an article about, uh-

1:09:59 Speaker 2 I mean, he understood about vitamins in a very deep way because in, in China-

1:10:03 Speaker 1 Right

1:10:03 Speaker 2 ... a lot of the sickness was because of the lack of vitamins, right?

1:10:06 Speaker 1 Deficiency

1:10:06 Speaker 2 He probably cured people with vitamins

1:10:08 Speaker 1 He, in fact, he walked miles to bring a vitamin to a child

1:10:12 Speaker 2 Wow

1:10:12 Speaker 1 He was like, uh, the Mesirat Nefesh with torn shoes-

1:10:14 Speaker 2 In Shanghai? In Shanghai

1:10:15 Speaker 1 He said, yeah, yeah. I heard it from people in Shanghai. The Poshet walked miles to... And, and the-

1:10:20 Speaker 2 He understood that a vitamin probably could save this child

1:10:22 Speaker 1 Uh, it's mamish a lifeline

1:10:23 Speaker 2 Wow

1:10:24 Speaker 1 He said that, uh, uh, and they didn't know what to pay

1:10:28 Speaker 2 Right

1:10:28 Speaker 1 They joined. Whatever they gave, they gave, whatever. But he, he, he knew everything. He, he would give vitamins. He would, uh... I mean, there was one time he was running in the street and somebody said, "Dr. Zelikson, where are you running?" The humidity was terrible in Shanghai

1:10:48 Speaker 2 Right. Yes

1:10:48 Speaker 1 The, the, every... I mean, Poshet, the clothing, they said cold clothing would Poshet right away. It was-- So they asked him, "Where are you running?"

1:10:55 Speaker 2 The summer, the summer-

1:10:55 Speaker 1 It's the middle of the day. He says-

1:10:56 Speaker 2 The summer's terrible. Yeah

1:10:57 Speaker 1 Yeah. He says, "Somebody's sick. He has to run"

1:11:01 Speaker 2 Right

1:11:02 Speaker 1 He, he would, he would, uh, vitamins or other things. He, he had his ideas, you know, how to help people. For example, when they had the beriberi or different diseases, whatever they had, they-- typhus, whatever. So there was a certain they needed to have a lot of yeast, and then maybe they'd have liver and, and yeast, whatever. Instead of liver, they didn't have a liver, they had peanuts

1:11:26 Speaker 2 By, by liver you mean like when people ate the chicken liver?

1:11:29 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, chicken liver, meat or beef liver. And so they had peanuts

1:11:33 Speaker 2 Right

1:11:33 Speaker 1 Peanut, that was like a secondary choice. A couple of them, somebody tells me from Montreal, he says, "We ate so many peanuts, the next 40 years we didn't wanna look at peanuts." But that's basically-

1:11:43 Speaker 2 But instead of like-

1:11:43 Speaker 1 That was the... Yeah. It was the, uh, supplement, I think it was vitamin B or whatever it was. But he mamish looked out for them for everything, and he was in touch with everything, and he came up with original ideas. Like for example, after the war, he met up with American, uh, doctors with a boat. They came out from Shanghai after the war, and they said, "You know, what's happening in United States?" And they said, "We came up with this thing in medicine," and they found out that he on his own was already forming it. He was already original

1:12:11 Speaker 2 Amazing

1:12:12 Speaker 1 So he was a, he was a tefach higher

1:12:16 Speaker 2 Oh

1:12:16 Speaker 1 And people didn't know. People are tefach higher, uh, from the ground, and people didn't realize. I mean, people who knew him, uh, uh, Poshet like, uh, they say Poshet, the harut said they respect, they revere. He was, he was, he was not... They say, as one person once mentioned from Debarchem, says one in a million. He says he doesn't even know. He says Poshet everything, a Talmid Chaham in this, how he was careful how he spoke, how everything by him was like disciplined, betachas

1:12:44 Speaker 2 Was he, was he, uh, absentminded? 'Cause a lot of times people that are tefach echor, like, uh, you know-

1:12:50 Speaker 1 Yeah. He, he-

1:12:50 Speaker 2 Forgets, forgets his socks

1:12:52 Speaker 1 He focused

1:12:52 Speaker 2 Forgets his socks at home

1:12:53 Speaker 1 No, no. He was a mesuder

1:12:55 Speaker 2 Hmm

1:12:56 Speaker 1 Cleanliness, cleans by everything spotless. Everything was by him like... I mean, people told me when he would come into the shul, Rabbi Reiner's shul and Rabbi Ramaila's shul in, uh, in Vilna, the way he was dressed, the way he walked, it was every time he was always very, very on top of everything. In everything, he was mesuder, betachas

1:13:18 Speaker 2 What did people-- Did people relate to him differently in the, in, in, when he was younger and he didn't have a beard? Was that something that, that people, that, that made people, uh, like misunderstand him?

1:13:30 Speaker 1 There was no-

1:13:32 Speaker 2 Or in those days was it-

1:13:33 Speaker 1 There-

1:13:33 Speaker 2 It meant something else

1:13:34 Speaker 1 In those days, in that generation, a lot of Lubavitch understood different and looked at it different than they look later

1:13:41 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:13:42 Speaker 1 So but mainly they knew a doctor, they knew he was a frumer person, they knew who he is, a Talmid Chaham at all. So they knew he's not wearing a beard, there must be a reason for that. And the pil mamish, the Rebbe never mentioned to him a word about a beard

1:13:57 Speaker 2 Mamish?

1:13:58 Speaker 1 Nothing. In 1963-

1:14:00 Speaker 2 And in tho- one second. In those days, a lot of times people for chasuner was a tanai or something, right?

1:14:06 Speaker 1 Okay. So, okay, so I'm getting to that

1:14:08 Speaker 2 Okay

1:14:08 Speaker 1 So actually just to, to, to, to get to 1963, lerech, my mother asked after Svedala, "Maybe you can let it grow, the beard grow"

1:14:18 Speaker 2 Oh, your mother wanted him to have a beard

1:14:19 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah

1:14:20 Speaker 2 For what purpose?

1:14:21 Speaker 1 She said others. Probably whenever it... I don't know what was mine, but it was her

1:14:25 Speaker 2 Ah

1:14:25 Speaker 1 Usually today, not always you see that happen

1:14:27 Speaker 2 Interesting. And she didn't come from a Lubavitch family, right?

1:14:30 Speaker 1 She came from, yeah, she came from a Rabbinical family, not Lubavitch

1:14:33 Speaker 2 Right

1:14:34 Speaker 1 My Zayde learned in Radin by the Chofetz Chaim

1:14:36 Speaker 2 See, I'm sure she, I'm sure not all her relatives had beards either

1:14:39 Speaker 1 Yeah. Not all of them had. My Zayde had. He was a Reb in a shul in Chicago later years

1:14:44 Speaker 2 A fu- a full beard

1:14:45 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah. He had a beard. In pictures we see a beard. And, um, but what happened by the chasuner was interesting because I did not know it when I published the book. The, the Rebbe wanted to go to the chasuner. This is late 1951, Hanukkah Yud Beis

1:15:05 Speaker 2 Hanukkah Yud Beis

1:15:06 Speaker 1 The Rebbe wanted to go to the wedding, but he wanted a heter. So he went over to Rav Shmuel Avigdor

1:15:11 Speaker 2 Say Hanukkah Yud Beis, why couldn't he go?

1:15:13 Speaker 1 December '51.

1:15:15 Speaker 2 Hanukkah-

1:15:15 Speaker 1 Not because of Veles, because of the beard.

1:15:18 Speaker 2 Ah.

1:15:18 Speaker 1 He made a condition that a chasid must have a beard.

1:15:21 Speaker 2 I see.

1:15:21 Speaker 1 So here it was a little issue for the Rebbe.

1:15:22 Speaker 2 Help you break it tonight, you're saying.

1:15:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, I break it.

1:15:24 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:15:24 Speaker 1 So, Min HaKtaiv. So he went over to Rav Shmuel, and he told Rav Shmuel that, uh, you know, what's, uh-

1:15:31 Speaker 2 Shmuel Vitan

1:15:32 Speaker 1 ... Rav Shmuel Vitan.

1:15:33 Speaker 2 He was kilor Rav here?

1:15:34 Speaker 1 He was the Rav, yeah, yeah.

1:15:35 Speaker 2 Oh, he was the Rav.

1:15:36 Speaker 1 The senior Rav by many-- I don't know if community Rav, but the Rebbe turned to him a lot.

1:15:40 Speaker 2 This is before Avremal Verkin?

1:15:42 Speaker 1 Rebbe would say V'tichametz. Yeah, yeah, Avremal Verkin started in the '70s, I mean, earlier till then it was Rabbi Saul Jacobson. So but he was a, he was a Rabbeim, Rabbi Shmuel, the Rebbe sold the chametz to.

1:15:57 Speaker 2 He was the Rav.

1:15:58 Speaker 1 Any, yeah, anytime there was something offhand, the Rebbe would ask him on the spot.

1:16:01 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

1:16:02 Speaker 1 So he was, uh, the Rav in a certain sense. I don't know if community people came to him as a Rav, but there's, you know. Then Rabbi Shimon came from Pittsburgh and was there. So Rabz Shmuel told the Rebbe, "This case is different. This person is different. Number one, he's not a bachur from yeshiva that you made a condition with."

1:16:22 Speaker 2 Right.

1:16:23 Speaker 1 "Number two, he's related to."

1:16:26 Speaker 2 But, uh, he's related to the Rebbe.

1:16:28 Speaker 1 The Rebbe.

1:16:28 Speaker 2 Through, through that.

1:16:29 Speaker 1 I got it, right.

1:16:30 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:16:30 Speaker 1 But mainly, uh, the Rebbe went to the wedding. Kabbalas Panim began 10:00 at night, Hanukkah wedding, 10:00 at night Hanukkah wedding.

1:16:38 Speaker 2 Because they were, because they were waiting for the Rebbe?

1:16:40 Speaker 1 Because waiting for the Rebbe, and the Rebbe was doing Hanukkah gelt 8:00 in 1770.

1:16:46 Speaker 2 As the Rebbe said, "If you want me to come-"

1:16:47 Speaker 1 That was the first surprise that he, he-- I don't know what he said to my father. I never heard that.

1:16:51 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:16:52 Speaker 1 And actually-

1:16:52 Speaker 2 They understood

1:16:52 Speaker 1 ... it's interesting because my father was waiting and waiting, which means he knew the Rebbe was gonna come. So it could be that the la-- in the daytime, the Rebbe sent a message to my father that he's coming.

1:17:03 Speaker 2 Oh, the guests didn't know it was gonna be at that time.

1:17:05 Speaker 1 The guests didn't know the sh-

1:17:06 Speaker 2 So they came to the cha-- they came to the chuppah at 5:00 o'clock.

1:17:09 Speaker 1 The chai, whatever, uh-

1:17:10 Speaker 2 And there was no-

1:17:10 Speaker 1 Those years they didn't have a date like later. You dial it, the Rebbe mentioned that invitations should be like by, by the previous or the previous Rebbe, it was 5:00.

1:17:18 Speaker 2 But I'm saying the, but I'm saying the-

1:17:20 Speaker 1 They came, Hanukkah is, uh, yeah.

1:17:21 Speaker 2 6:00 o'clock

1:17:21 Speaker 1 They kind of left six, seven o'clock.

1:17:23 Speaker 2 And they waited three hours for the chuppah.

1:17:25 Speaker 1 For the chuppah, for the Kabbalas Panim.

1:17:26 Speaker 2 Kabbalas Panim. All right, the picture, the picture's at the Kabbalas Panim.

1:17:29 Speaker 1 Kabbalas Panim.

1:17:30 Speaker 2 Right. And-

1:17:31 Speaker 1 And Rabbi Saul Gordon drove the Rebbe with the Ziknei HaChasidim, 10:00 o'clock he announces-

1:17:35 Speaker 2 In Manhattan

1:17:35 Speaker 1 ... Yeah. It was like, uh, Lower Manhattan. And 10:00 o'clock he announces, "The Rebbe is here." The Rebbe came in, sat down by the Kabbalas Panim, and my father wanted to give the Rebbe l'chaim. So the Rebbe said, "Chasam davar lemelech." Similar to king, he shouldn't be, uh, catering. So the Rebbe sat at the-

1:18:02 Speaker 2 One second. The Rebbe didn't usually fast when he was Mesadrek Kedushin or, or, or-

1:18:05 Speaker 1 No, that's, uh, yeah, by Hasidic tradition, I never heard it.

1:18:08 Speaker 2 Okay, so I misheard.

1:18:09 Speaker 1 Yeah. That'll be something interesting. I never heard it. A Kabbalan, and it was already at the-

1:18:16 Speaker 2 It's too late. Too late anyway, yeah

1:18:17 Speaker 1 ... night of . So the Pelel, the Rebbe, um, so somebody poured him, uh, you see in the picture there's a Kallah school, the Rebbe, um, then the Rebbe started to speak the sicha.

1:18:29 Speaker 2 He said a sicha?

1:18:30 Speaker 1 Sicha. The sicha was, uh, basically about women, foundation of the Jewish nation, and it's connected with Hanukkah.

1:18:37 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:18:37 Speaker 1 The nest, the miracle that happened with them. And then the Rebbe remained sitting in the Kabbalas Panim ta- at the Kabbalas Panim table till after badekenish. The Rebbe did not go to badekenish. Uh, once they're ready for the chuppah, the Rebbe would go directly to the chuppah.

1:18:52 Speaker 2 Was this the only chasuna that the Rebbe was Mesadrek Kedushin outside of-

1:18:56 Speaker 1 There were a few

1:18:57 Speaker 2 ... outside of Crown Heights?

1:18:57 Speaker 1 There were, there was a few, uh, mentioned in Mekadeshis world, there's a few of them that were outside of Crown Heights-

1:19:02 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:19:02 Speaker 1 ... but not that many. And, um, and then there was a Rav then that asked a question, but it's enough for itself. And, um, then they went to the chuppah. The chuppah was inside, inside, and it seems like the Rebbe knew that they're gonna open up, you know, an opening like they do today. The Rebbe looked up, nodded with the head, and he was Mesadrek Kedushin.

1:19:28 Speaker 2 Right.

1:19:29 Speaker 1 At the end, the last bracha, the Rebbe wanted to honor my Zayde, my mother's father, who was a Rav, and he in return gave it back to the Rebbe. And right-

1:19:40 Speaker 2 And so the Rebbe said all seven brachos.

1:19:42 Speaker 1 All seven brachos. And then the, uh, the Rebbe left, came back 1770 about 12:00 at night.

1:19:49 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:19:50 Speaker 1 In the end of his Tanya, uh, onion skin, uh, carbon copy, uh, copy original, the sicha from the Rebbe. In other words, my fa- what my father has in the end of the Tanya, he found the, the Rabie Okan, who hazard the sicha. He was there at that sicha. He typed it up, and he handed it to my father. So my father always kept it in the back of the Tanya-

1:20:15 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

1:20:15 Speaker 1 ... like glued in.

1:20:16 Speaker 2 Hmm.

1:20:17 Speaker 1 And in 1990, when I was publishing my father's Sefer, I send in the, uh, sicha.

1:20:29 Speaker 2 They didn't have the sicha before?

1:20:31 Speaker 1 The sicha was there, but I'm, but I'm sending it in for the Sefer.

1:20:34 Speaker 2 Right.

1:20:34 Speaker 1 The Rebbe's Magiya it, very light, edited it, and today it is in Likutey Sichos Volume 30.

1:20:42 Speaker 2 Oh, you sent it into the Rebbe with the, with the-