Ep. 58 // "Learning in Lubavitch" w/ Mr. David Shabat

00:00 Speaker 1 So here it is, Friday night. I'm, I'm in 770 with a throng of people that are waiting for the Rebbe to come down. The path goes this way.

00:06 Speaker 2 Right.

00:06 Speaker 1 And I'm on one of the sides.

00:07 Speaker 2 Yeah.

00:07 Speaker 1 I was on the left side.

00:08 Speaker 2 Right.

00:08 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe comes through there, and he's saying, "Good Shabbos everybody. Good Shabbos. Good Shabbos." You know, he's going. And then he gets to me, he says, "Good Shabbos" and he goes. He looks at the shoes and goes, "Huh?" And then he catches himself, and he goes, "Oh, Good Shabbos. Good Shabbos. Good Shabbos." He goes on. And he goes, "What the..." So I got, I got the Rebbe's attention with a pair of shoes.

00:32 Speaker 2 Welcome to Homesick for Lubavitch, a podcast where we explore Lubavitch identity in the year 2025. My name is Bentzi Yafetzon, and I will be your host. Let's begin. All righty. I am here in Boynton Beach with Mr. David-

00:55 Speaker 1 Shabbat

00:55 Speaker 2 ... Shabbat. Um, I'd like to spend a moment on, on the backstory of how we even, uh, met each other. Um, so, uh, of course, this, the Homesick for Lubavitch podcast has been up on the internet for about a year and a half now. And, uh, you know, some of the listeners, I know who they are, some of them I don't. Um, uh, many, many of them, most of them I don't. And one of them is a fellow living in Eretz Yisrael named Daniel.

01:26 Speaker 1 Yeah.

01:27 Speaker 2 And, uh, Daniel is not a card-carrying Lubavitcher. All right? Um, I don't think he considers him, considers himself at all a Lubavitcher, but for whatever reason, he was curious enough to listen to the podcast, and he reached out to me and told me that, "You know, you should have my grandfather on." Uh, the sto- and he starts telling me this story of his grandfather, Mr. Shabbat, um, David, uh, that fascinated me, which was a story of a young boy who spent close to a decade, right?

02:04 Speaker 1 More.

02:05 Speaker 2 More than a decade in 770.

02:08 Speaker 1 Not in 770, but that's what I mean.

02:09 Speaker 2 Oh.

02:10 Speaker 1 And then, and then-

02:11 Speaker 2 Close enough to 770, in Crown Heights, let's say, in the Lubavitch of the, the Lubavitch, those early years of the late '50s and early '60s. And, um, you know, went on, went on after that to live his life in various places. Um, never fully, um... I shouldn't put it that way, but look... You know, meeting you or seeing you wouldn't, wouldn't assume necessarily-

02:38 Speaker 1 There'd be no clue that I went to Lubavitch.

02:40 Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah. But ha- have a very positive and close connection. And so when he told me that story, I was like, "Okay, I gotta, I gotta hear more about it. I just need to figure out a way to get to Florida." So, here we are, and, uh, thank you very much for making the time and agreeing to come on, and thank you, Daniel, for the shidduch. I'm just here basically to hear your story and to listen, so let's just start from the beginning. You know, why don't you tell us a little bit about where you were born? Um, h- you know, what was, what was the world around you like at that time?

03:08 Speaker 1 So I was born in Washington, DC, probably one of the only Frum people you're ever gonna meet that's was born in DC.

03:16 Speaker 2 Right.

03:16 Speaker 1 Now there's a lot out there, but they're born in the suburbs, not in DC itself.

03:19 Speaker 2 Right.

03:20 Speaker 1 And, uh-

03:21 Speaker 2 What brought your parents to DC?

03:25 Speaker 1 Business. My, uh, my, uh, my grandfather was there, and my mother was there, and, uh-

03:31 Speaker 2 Yes

03:31 Speaker 1 ... so that's where they lived in the Bronx, New York, originally when they moved. They moved from Russia to Israel, my Aunt Rina was born, and then they moved to the Bronx where my mother was born, and then they moved to DC for, for whatever, for whatever reason my grandfather decided that he needed to go there to make money.

03:47 Speaker 2 Right.

03:47 Speaker 1 And then, of course, that's where we were born and, and et cetera. And not religious at all. Uh, you know, I, I, I couldn't tell you what a yarmulke was. I, I couldn't tell you what gefilte fish was. That, that's how, that's how far away we were from. And, uh-

04:03 Speaker 2 So no Yom Kippur, no-

04:04 Speaker 1 What's Yom Kippur? Okay. I mean, that's essentially what, what it was. There was nothing. Um, absolutely nothing. Okay?

04:14 Speaker 2 So but even at-- But my point is even at home, there was no Judaism.

04:18 Speaker 1 Not at all.

04:19 Speaker 2 Hmm.

04:20 Speaker 1 I don't think because of my grandfather that we poured pork in, but there was cheeses and meats and all that other stuff was, was part of our-

04:29 Speaker 2 Right

04:29 Speaker 1 ... life at the time.

04:30 Speaker 2 So no pork was the line.

04:31 Speaker 1 I don't think s- I, I don't think. I wouldn't know because it, you know.

04:34 Speaker 2 You were looking.

04:35 Speaker 1 But I don't think so.

04:36 Speaker 2 Right.

04:36 Speaker 1 I don't, I don't think it was.

04:37 Speaker 2 So you knew you were Jewish. That much you knew.

04:40 Speaker 1 At some point, yes, when I got a little bit older because then my mother sent me to a conservative after school Talmud Torah type situation.

04:49 Speaker 2 I see.

04:50 Speaker 1 Okay? And, uh, and there is repercussions from that till today. I remember sitting on the front porch with my mother, and she said she is now pregnant with the fourth child. Okay? And she says, "I got a great girl's name, but I have no idea about a boy's name. I c- I can't come up with a boy's name. I can't. There's nothing that I like." I said, "Mom, in school," in cheder or whatever, th- I didn't call it cheder, but, you know, it was, uh, we're learning about Daniel in the lions' den.

05:23 Speaker 2 Oh.

05:23 Speaker 1 She says, "Daniel. Hmm. I like that." And now my brother Daniel has been with us for, you know, over 50 years, you know?

05:33 Speaker 2 Oh.

05:33 Speaker 1 So and I... He, he still doesn't believe that I gave him his name, but it's all right.

05:38 Speaker 2 How about that?

05:39 Speaker 1 No cookie. So what, that's, that, that was the closest that I got to anything. And then, uh, at one point, the Malim broth- brothers from Eretz Yisrael, Brisker's-

05:48 Speaker 2 Hmm

05:49 Speaker 1 ... moved to DC to open a Brisk yeshiva and to expand Brisk in the DC area because there was very little on the Orthodox side in DC at all, okay? And it was an opportunity that they saw. Okay, so They heard that we were having trouble because my father was gone, and, uh, so they came, and they started helping out financially with food and different things-

06:14 Speaker 2 Right

06:14 Speaker 1 ... and helping and whatever. And, uh, one day these, uh, shluchim came. You know, shluchim started much earlier than everybody thinks. And, and we're talking '56, '57, they were already going out as a regular routine, so who knows when they actually started going out as shlichas.

06:32 Speaker 2 You're talking about the pairs of, like, bachurim, right?

06:34 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

06:34 Speaker 2 The American, American shluchim, right?

06:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

06:37 Speaker 2 Right.

06:37 Speaker 1 So, so, uh, they came, and, uh, they offered to put me up in yeshiva in the dorm, no cost for anything.

06:46 Speaker 2 One second. You were looking to go to yeshiva?

06:48 Speaker 1 No, no, we... I, I needed s-something to do. We, we needed. My mother couldn't afford to put up all, pay for all the kids. She couldn't afford it.

06:55 Speaker 2 I see.

06:56 Speaker 1 So if I was away in yeshiva 10, 11 months out of the year, that's one financial situation she didn't have to worry about. So that's money for food, that's whatever.

07:06 Speaker 2 Right.

07:06 Speaker 1 You know?

07:06 Speaker 2 And you were 10 years old at the time, you say?

07:07 Speaker 1 10 years old.

07:08 Speaker 2 Huh.

07:08 Speaker 1 That's correct.

07:09 Speaker 2 Huh.

07:09 Speaker 1 So, uh, so, uh, you know, well, I was going, "I don't know. You're going away, and I don't, you know, I don't know what that would mean," you know? And then they said, "Plus there's three weeks of Camp Gan Israel that you would go to before you went to yeshiva." I said, "Mom, camp. Let's go."

07:25 Speaker 2 Right.

07:25 Speaker 1 "Let's do it." So the camp was what got me to go-

07:28 Speaker 2 Right

07:28 Speaker 1 ... take me over the hump as a kid.

07:30 Speaker 2 Right.

07:30 Speaker 1 But then I, I, I went there, and I dormed there for su- And that Bedford, Indiantown, and then Rabbi Jacobson was looking to open a yeshiva for, for college kids that had no background, but he didn't want them to have to sit down with beard and, and everything. They wanted, he wanted them to feel comfortable, so he's looking for bachurim that were frum and could learn to be their, their, their guides, so to speak, with learning and with, uh, with life, so to speak, as far as a frum Jew is concerned.

07:57 Speaker 2 Well, one second. Uh, you... So he came when you were already in Bedford, Indiantown?

08:01 Speaker 1 Yes.

08:02 Speaker 2 But so you come to Bedford, Indiantown as a 10-year-old?

08:05 Speaker 1 As a 10-year-old.

08:05 Speaker 2 How many other 10-year-olds were there in Bedford, Indiantown?

08:08 Speaker 1 At, uh, in the dorm? Oh, they had, they had school from, from kindergarten all the way through high school.

08:12 Speaker 2 So you came to the Chabad Elementary School in Bedford, Indiantown-

08:15 Speaker 1 That's correct

08:16 Speaker 2 ... as a boy?

08:16 Speaker 1 As a boy, and, and the dorm.

08:18 Speaker 2 How many boys were there as 10-year-olds in the dorm?

08:23 Speaker 1 Not many.

08:24 Speaker 2 Not many.

08:25 Speaker 1 Not many. There were a couple... I mean, uh, Michael Kierman, who lives h- here also now, and I just ran into him, uh, uh, like, six months ago. He was in the dorm, too, but that was, uh, later. That wasn't when I was 10. That was more, like, when I was after bar mitzvah and stuff.

08:40 Speaker 2 So, so you come as a 10-year-old. You come from Washington, DC. The only Judaism that you know about is that you don't eat pork, possibly.

08:46 Speaker 1 I, I-

08:47 Speaker 2 Possibly

08:47 Speaker 1 ... don't even know about it 'cause I don't have-

08:48 Speaker 2 Right. Right. That's even, not even certain. Certainly wasn't, like, a hardcore thing. And you get plopped down, uh, first into camp. How was camp like?

08:58 Speaker 1 Camp was great. We, uh, they had color-

09:00 Speaker 2 So this, this did-

09:00 Speaker 1 ... color war.

09:01 Speaker 2 Yeah.

09:01 Speaker 1 C- they had color war, okay? And the team that I was on for c- for color war got killed. We got w- d- didn't get ma- many points at all or whatever, except for one baseball team. The baseball team that I played on, I hit a two-run homer and won the game, so that's the only points we got out of baseball was for that one game.

09:23 Speaker 2 So camp wa- was camp then in Ellenville or Swan Lake, do you remember?

09:26 Speaker 1 Swan Lake.

09:27 Speaker 2 Swan Lake.

09:27 Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure.

09:27 Speaker 2 Who was that counselor?

09:29 Speaker 1 I don't-

09:29 Speaker 2 Do you remember?

09:29 Speaker 1 I don't remember. No, I don't remember.

09:31 Speaker 2 '57 you said.

09:33 Speaker 1 '57, yeah.

09:34 Speaker 2 So that's one of the, one of the first years there.

09:37 Speaker 1 I don't know if it was the first year or not, but they-

09:38 Speaker 2 Yeah, I think this year they're celebrating, I think they're celebrating 70 this year.

09:42 Speaker 1 70 years, wow.

09:43 Speaker 2 So you, you, you were there the second, third year, one of the, one of the... Within the first five years for sure.

09:49 Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

09:50 Speaker 2 How about that?

09:51 Speaker 1 So I'm an atchlasit, I guess you'd call me.

09:53 Speaker 2 Yeah, that's what it's-

09:56 Speaker 1 Hey.

09:57 Speaker 2 Who would have thought?

09:57 Speaker 1 Yeah, who would have thought, you know?

09:59 Speaker 2 So, so, so you come to camp, but camp was a little bit more a mix of Americana, right?

10:04 Speaker 1 Yes, it was.

10:05 Speaker 2 There wasn't only, it wasn't only Hasidi-

10:06 Speaker 1 Uh-

10:06 Speaker 2 There weren't that many Hasidi boys.

10:07 Speaker 1 There weren't that many Hasidi b- 'cause they wanted to get the non-Hasidi boys into the camp and to-

10:12 Speaker 2 I also don't-

10:13 Speaker 1 ... and to, and to taste, and to get a taste.

10:15 Speaker 2 I also don't think there were many Hasidi boys in America at the time.

10:18 Speaker 1 Prob- uh, you know, probably not.

10:20 Speaker 2 Yeah.

10:20 Speaker 1 I mean, I, I don't know that because I'm not, I was just a kid. I, I-

10:22 Speaker 2 Right

10:23 Speaker 1 ... wasn't even paying attention to stuff like that.

10:25 Speaker 2 Right. But-

10:25 Speaker 1 But, but no, you're, you're, you're right. There weren't a lot of guys. I mean, there were, the old- a couple older guys with beards and whatnot.

10:32 Speaker 2 Right.

10:32 Speaker 1 But, uh, I don't re- I, there was no one to be friends with at my age-

10:37 Speaker 2 Right

10:37 Speaker 1 ... at the camp except, except like, like people like me.

10:41 Speaker 2 Other, other American kids who had-

10:42 Speaker 1 Yeah

10:43 Speaker 2 ... made their way to the camp?

10:44 Speaker 1 Yeah.

10:44 Speaker 2 Were you there the summer that the rabbi came to camp?

10:47 Speaker 1 No.

10:47 Speaker 2 Do you remember? You were not there that summer.

10:48 Speaker 1 I know he wasn't there when I, uh, I was there, so that, that-

10:50 Speaker 2 But it was only one good summer

10:52 Speaker 1 ... it could have been, it could have been the first or second. They had three sessions.

10:55 Speaker 2 Okay. I think... Oh, okay. You're saying a different part of the summer.

10:58 Speaker 1 I was in the, I was in the third session, so I don't know when he ca- uh, if he came that year or whether it was, uh-

11:02 Speaker 2 I see

11:03 Speaker 1 ... that session there. But, uh, wow, it was an experience, you know? And I was a hero because I hit a two-run homer and won the game, you know? I, uh, you know?

11:13 Speaker 2 That'll do it.

11:13 Speaker 1 So, so, uh, so after ca- after camp, I went to, uh, yeshiva and went into the dorm, and, uh, felt strange.

11:24 Speaker 2 Did feel strange.

11:24 Speaker 1 Felt strange, yeah. And, and the thing is, this is really cool, okay? I didn't know what, but all I remember seeing is Hasidim with, with payos. So I said, "You know, I better grow payos if I'm gonna go to Lubavitch."

11:36 Speaker 2 You're talking about Lubavitch payos or, or the Satmar payos?

11:38 Speaker 1 No, I, I'm talking about the-

11:40 Speaker 2 The curly ones.

11:41 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I, I, I got it, and then I get there, and no one's got them on. I said, "Holy moly."

11:46 Speaker 2 Wrong payos.

11:46 Speaker 1 It, it, it took me, uh, I think a week, and finally shwoo. They, they got taken off.

11:51 Speaker 2 Wrong payos.

11:52 Speaker 1 Yeah.

11:52 Speaker 2 So, so did you, did you dress the part? Did you, were you expected to dress the part while you were there?

11:57 Speaker 1 I dress like I dress now. Didn't change one bit.

12:01 Speaker 2 Right, but you're 10 years old. Are you, like, you're putting on tzitzits?

12:04 Speaker 1 Yeah, of course.

12:04 Speaker 2 Right.

12:05 Speaker 1 Of course. Yeah, you need tzitzit, yeah.

12:07 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, at that point you don't have to worry about if you're gonna keep your beard or not. There is no beard at 10 years old.

12:11 Speaker 1 No, no. There's no beard. No, there's no beard.

12:11 Speaker 2 But, but, like, in terms of, you know, yarmulkes, tzitzits, like, you're expected to wear-

12:15 Speaker 1 That's what it was

12:16 Speaker 2 ... to wear that.

12:17 Speaker 1 And from when, when we became religious, I wore my yarmulke Every day before I went to yeshiva, whatever it was, I was always wearing... My brothers did the same thing. And, uh, I remember f- I was coming home from elementary school.

12:35 Speaker 2 In Bedford-Stuyvesant?

12:36 Speaker 1 No, elementary school in DC.

12:38 Speaker 2 Before Bedford-Stuyvesant.

12:39 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, Fair- Fairview Junior High School. And, uh, the teachers loved me because I knew all the answers. I listened, I studied, and I did know the... Everybody else in class, uh, they, they, they, they, they were there, but they didn't, they didn't study.

12:57 Speaker 2 You're talking about the Talmud Torah or just regular-

12:58 Speaker 1 No, I'm talking about-

12:59 Speaker 2 Public school

12:59 Speaker 1 ... I'm talking about regular public school.

13:01 Speaker 2 Okay.

13:01 Speaker 1 And so, so after a while they got annoyed with it.

13:04 Speaker 2 Who got annoyed?

13:05 Speaker 1 The, the, the kids.

13:06 Speaker 2 Sure.

13:06 Speaker 1 They got with it, you know?

13:07 Speaker 2 Yeah.

13:08 Speaker 1 So here I'm walking home now. It's a seven, eight, eight, uh, block walk from my school to my house, and there's about 30 of these kids following me.

13:18 Speaker 2 Uh-oh.

13:18 Speaker 1 And getting closer and closer and getting a little more threatening and threatening. So finally, what I did was I ran across the street, ran up on someone's porch, and I started banging on the door. "There's 30 kids, 30 Black kids from school following me home. They're gonna kill me. Help! Call the police! Call the police! Call the police!" I did this loud, okay? Thank God I did it loud. There was nobody home. But I turned around, and all, they, they were all gone. They all scattered. They didn't know that there was nobody home.

13:46 Speaker 2 Right.

13:46 Speaker 1 They just were afraid to come, and they all scattered, and that was the last incident that I ever had with that, with them.

13:51 Speaker 2 Hmm.

13:52 Speaker 1 But it was still a, you know, it's... In those days, they really didn't have a, a good feel for Jew, what a, what a Jew was, you know? At least in DC, because there weren't that many living in DC. They all lived in the suburbs.

14:10 Speaker 2 Right.

14:10 Speaker 1 So they, they didn't, they didn't encounter any.

14:12 Speaker 2 And then you end up in Brooklyn, where it's only... I mean, not, not the whole Brooklyn, but in the school it's full of Jewish kids.

14:19 Speaker 1 It's all, it was all, all Jewish kids. Not all Frum kids, but all Jewish kids.

14:23 Speaker 2 Not all Frum.

14:23 Speaker 1 Not all Frum, 'cause a lot of kids from the area, they wanted to, to have their kids in, in the Lubavitch. Says, "Okay, you don't have to pay a whole lot of money for it. You can come in."

14:31 Speaker 2 So do you remember who, like, the teachers were, the principal was?

14:34 Speaker 1 The principal was Rabbi Tannenbaum.

14:36 Speaker 2 Rabbi Tannenbaum.

14:37 Speaker 1 And Rabbi Shraga was the vice principal.

14:39 Speaker 2 Rabbi Shraga was the-

14:39 Speaker 1 Shraga. You never heard of Rabbi Shraga?

14:41 Speaker 2 I never, no, I never heard-

14:42 Speaker 1 You never heard of Rabbi Shraga?

14:43 Speaker 2 No. Is he, does, was he the one-

14:43 Speaker 1 The Yehuda Maccabees?

14:46 Speaker 2 The Yehuda Maccabee? Which-

14:47 Speaker 1 No, no, no. There was a, a point in time where, where there was a lot of, uh, hatred from the regular community, and they were taking it out on, on the Jewish kids from the school and whatnot.

15:01 Speaker 2 In Crown Heights?

15:02 Speaker 1 In Crown Heights. So, and it was not just that they're doing, they were killing people. They were... I mean, this was heavy-duty stuff. So Rabbi Shraga founded the Maccabees. He actually had a rifle or something in the, in the trunk of his car. And they went out protecting everybody against these... And after a while it stopped, obviously. But, but I, I still remember-

15:25 Speaker 2 Who's this Rabbi Shraga guy? He was a Chabad guy? It doesn't sound like it.

15:28 Speaker 1 No, he wasn't a Ch- he wasn't a Ch- he was the guy that took care of the dorm.

15:31 Speaker 2 Right.

15:32 Speaker 1 He slept in the building, and he got paid.

15:34 Speaker 2 He was single?

15:34 Speaker 1 He didn't teach. He was single. He was single. And he was, uh, he was a tough guy. He was a tough guy. But, uh-

15:42 Speaker 2 So he's like a, like a dorm counselor-

15:44 Speaker 1 No, uh, no, no

15:45 Speaker 2 ... caretaker?

15:46 Speaker 1 It was a caretaker more than that. Made sure that they were, they went to bed and that kind of stuff.

15:49 Speaker 2 So describe him to me. What did he look like? He had a beard?

15:51 Speaker 1 He had a beard.

15:52 Speaker 2 Had a beard.

15:52 Speaker 1 Red, reddish beard. He was sh- uh, you know, maybe 5'4", 5'5", something like that.

15:57 Speaker 2 He was a survivor? Like, what was his deal?

15:59 Speaker 1 No, no. He came from Brazil. He came from, he-

16:01 Speaker 2 From Brazil?

16:02 Speaker 1 From Brazil. He was Brazilian.

16:03 Speaker 2 Huh.

16:05 Speaker 1 And, uh, he, he wound up over... Somebody recruited him in Brazil, and he came here and he, and this is the job he got.

16:10 Speaker 2 Right.

16:11 Speaker 1 But, uh, he was a hard guy to, uh, to be around because he was very demanding and, and no nonsense.

16:19 Speaker 2 So he was like the guy who you had to answer to as a, as a s- as a dorm-

16:22 Speaker 1 No, no, no. In, in the dorm.

16:23 Speaker 2 Right.

16:24 Speaker 1 In the dorm situation.

16:25 Speaker 2 Right.

16:25 Speaker 1 So you had to be in bed on time. You had to get up. So he would wake you up and make sure you went to bed at night, and-

16:29 Speaker 2 So like a, kind of dorm counselor almost?

16:32 Speaker 1 Yeah.

16:32 Speaker 2 Or a father?

16:32 Speaker 1 I, I don't know that we looked at it that way because he didn't-

16:34 Speaker 2 Right

16:34 Speaker 1 ... he didn't counsel anything. He just- ... you get in bed and you get out, and that's it, you know?

16:38 Speaker 2 The, yeah, okay. Dorm counselor without the cookie, without the cookies. Okay.

16:41 Speaker 1 Yeah. So, uh, but he, he, he, he did a lot in the community. I mean, and he, uh... So he was a tough guy.

16:51 Speaker 2 And the principal you said was Rabbi Tannenbaum?

16:52 Speaker 1 Rabbi Tannenbaum.

16:53 Speaker 2 And he was a Chabad guy?

16:55 Speaker 1 He was a Chabad guy.

16:56 Speaker 2 Describe him to me. What are your earliest impressions?

16:57 Speaker 1 I don't know, about 5'4", a reddish beard.

17:00 Speaker 2 Also red. Everybody's reddish.

17:02 Speaker 1 Well, he had a reddish beard. What did- What, what can I tell you?

17:05 Speaker 2 I believe, I believe you.

17:06 Speaker 1 Maybe that's the only color I could recognize in those days. I don't know. Who knows?

17:09 Speaker 2 Right.

17:09 Speaker 1 You know, he had, he had a reddish beard, and he was, uh-

17:11 Speaker 2 Old, older guy? Younger guy?

17:13 Speaker 1 I would say in those days, uh, 40 to 50.

17:17 Speaker 2 And how did he... Was he... Where, where, he was, he must have come from Russia, I imagine.

17:20 Speaker 1 I don't, I don't know where-

17:21 Speaker 2 You don't know?

17:21 Speaker 1 I have no idea.

17:22 Speaker 2 Did he spoke English?

17:23 Speaker 1 He spoke English well.

17:24 Speaker 2 He spoke English well?

17:25 Speaker 1 Yes, but I have no idea where he came from.

17:27 Speaker 2 How, what did you think of him? Was he a nice guy? Did you respect him?

17:30 Speaker 1 I, I, I lost a lot of respect for him. I, I remember after... My first year there was tough because I, Yiddish and, and Hebrew, I, I had to learn everything at one time because they translated the Gemara-

17:42 Speaker 2 Into Yiddish

17:42 Speaker 1 ... into Yiddish. So I was going, I was going bananas.

17:45 Speaker 2 Right.

17:46 Speaker 1 Until I had this incident with the, the rebbe. Someone threw something at him when his, was, he was facing the blackboard, and the whole class laughed, and I was laughing too. He thought I threw it, so he-

17:57 Speaker 2 So just to clarify for the listening, not the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

17:59 Speaker 1 No, no.

18:00 Speaker 2 The rebbe-

18:00 Speaker 1 This is my rebbe

18:00 Speaker 2 ... of the class.

18:01 Speaker 1 This is the, the teacher.

18:02 Speaker 2 Right. Right.

18:03 Speaker 1 So he came over and twisted my arm, and you don't do that from a guy with DC. You don't do that. I just-

18:07 Speaker 2 Who, who twisted your arm?

18:08 Speaker 1 The, the teacher.

18:09 Speaker 2 He thought it was you.

18:10 Speaker 1 He thought it was me, so now he's, you know-

18:11 Speaker 2 He's in

18:11 Speaker 1 ... in those, in those days, you know, corporal punishment was-

18:14 Speaker 2 Right

18:14 Speaker 1 ... so I was, I, so I became a little corporal with him too. You know, he twists the arm, so your head's over here.

18:22 Speaker 2 Sucked him in the face.

18:23 Speaker 1 I gave, I gave him a black eye.

18:24 Speaker 2 Uh-oh.

18:25 Speaker 1 Next thing I found myself in Rabbi Fogelman's class.

18:28 Speaker 2 Rabbi Fogelman?

18:28 Speaker 1 Yeah, halfway down. I got demoted So what, what was he doing? He was now doing, uh, they were, I don't know, about s- five, five months, four months behind, six months maybe, I don't know, behind where, where we're learning in Rabbi Bernesi's class. So now he's reviewing everything that I already learned in Rabbi Bernesi's class, so I became the star of the class.

18:49 Speaker 2 Yeah.

18:49 Speaker 1 And he fell in love with me, you know?

18:51 Speaker 2 So you liked Rabbi Fogelman?

18:52 Speaker 1 Fogelman was a dynamite guy. He-- and he was, uh-

18:55 Speaker 2 Which told-- Which-- Do you remember his first name?

18:57 Speaker 1 No.

18:58 Speaker 2 That's right.

18:59 Speaker 1 How you call my first name, sir?

19:01 Speaker 2 No, I understand. I was trying to figure out which Fogelman it is.

19:03 Speaker 1 He's-- He was from, from, uh, I think Massachusetts originally.

19:07 Speaker 2 So it's... Oh, okay. His father probably was a rabbi in Massachusetts.

19:10 Speaker 1 Could be. If, if there's a Rabbi Fogelman in Massachusetts.

19:13 Speaker 2 Well, he's passed-

19:13 Speaker 1 But we're talking about going back in the thirties.

19:15 Speaker 2 No, he's passed away, that Rabbi Fogelman. I can't imagine he was a teacher because he, I think, I think he already lived in Massachusetts, but makes sense.

19:21 Speaker 1 No, this, he came from Massachusetts to taught in the yeshiva.

19:24 Speaker 2 Okay.

19:25 Speaker 1 And obviously got married and lived, and, and was living in Crown Heights still for, for, for, for quite a while.

19:30 Speaker 2 So maybe it was that Rabbi. Was he, wait, was he a bit older at the time? You know?

19:33 Speaker 1 I don't know a bit older was. I mean, I was-

19:35 Speaker 2 It was just-

19:36 Speaker 1 I was like-

19:36 Speaker 2 Anyway

19:36 Speaker 1 ... ten, 11. I mean, I-

19:37 Speaker 2 Anyway, who, who, who... Any Fogelman's listening to this podcast will know who this Fogelman was. We'll find out.

19:42 Speaker 1 Yeah.

19:43 Speaker 2 But, um, but what was it like, what was it like in terms of, uh, the classmates and just the general, um, I guess community-

19:51 Speaker 1 They were-

19:52 Speaker 2 ... that you found yourself in?

19:52 Speaker 1 Most, most of the, most of the kids in school were similar to me. They were k- kids from the area.

19:58 Speaker 2 Right.

19:58 Speaker 1 Instead of going to public school, uh, Lubavitch, Chabad or whatever, Lubavitch. Well, Chabad was in those days. It wasn't Chabad at all. I mean, Chabad didn't exist.

20:08 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes.

20:09 Speaker 1 Okay? So it was Lubavitch. These guys-

20:12 Speaker 2 Right

20:12 Speaker 1 ... I think they were-- they, their interest was to give people a Jewish education, so they would, uh-

20:16 Speaker 2 Right

20:16 Speaker 1 ... they were able to get kids, instead of going to public school, they got them to, to go to the yeshiva. And for the parents, it was good because now the kids were being take of, taken care of till five o'clock, six o'clock in the evening, so they could work a job and still be home for the kids when they come home. So it was a good thing for them.

20:32 Speaker 2 This week's episode is brought to you by This World is a Garden, a new film and concert production by UVLA Media. Based on the Rebbe's first talk, Basay Legani, the production tells the story of the Chabad vision lasting over 300 years to see this world as God sees it, as His garden. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance of a string quartet, This World is a Garden is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision as time passes by. This production is now available to be shown at your Chabad house and community. Share the message and vision of Basay Legani with your community in a way you never have before. For more information, please visit thisworldisagarden.com. Right. But okay, so, uh, what you're telling me, and it makes sense, is that in school it didn't feel so much like a culture shock because many of the kids could have-- you could have been them-

21:27 Speaker 1 Right

21:27 Speaker 2 ... they could have been you.

21:28 Speaker 1 Right.

21:28 Speaker 2 But when school is over, and let's say it's Shabbos, right? And-

21:32 Speaker 1 Uh, Sh- Shabbos, I had a balebos. Uh, Florist Hebrew Bookstore, did you ever hear of that in, in Crown Heights?

21:36 Speaker 2 You told me, you told me about on the phone. I, I, I-

21:38 Speaker 1 Okay

21:38 Speaker 2 ... guess-

21:39 Speaker 1 So my balebos was, was Yisroel Flor and his wife Shoshana. Okay? And, uh-

21:44 Speaker 2 What did you mean by balebos? You stayed with them for Shabbos?

21:46 Speaker 1 For Shabbos, there was nothing at the yeshiva Shabbos.

21:49 Speaker 2 Okay.

21:49 Speaker 1 Everybody came to the Rebbe.

21:50 Speaker 2 I see.

21:51 Speaker 1 Okay? So it was a 20, 20, 25-minute walk from Beth Karom Dean, the high school we dormed-

21:55 Speaker 2 Okay

21:55 Speaker 1 ... to over there. So that wasn't, that wasn't a thing as, as an amenable thing to go on Shabbos. They come there, come and have a meal Friday, then go back out-

22:02 Speaker 2 Right

22:02 Speaker 1 ... and then walk in the morning, and they wanna go back.

22:04 Speaker 2 Right.

22:05 Speaker 1 So they, they made sure everybody had a balebos that was in the dorm, and they got appropriate people for each of the kids. So I got, I got, I got, I got them, and they were-

22:13 Speaker 2 So you would stay by them, or just you eat by them?

22:14 Speaker 1 I slept by them.

22:15 Speaker 2 Slept by them.

22:15 Speaker 1 Slept by them and ate by them, and I become-- actually I became part of the family.

22:18 Speaker 2 Wow.

22:19 Speaker 1 Um-

22:19 Speaker 2 And they w- And I'm assuming they were Chabad, uh-

22:22 Speaker 1 So-

22:22 Speaker 2 'Cause not everyone in Crown Heights in those days was Chabad, or L-

22:25 Speaker 1 He-

22:25 Speaker 2 Sorry, Lubavitch

22:26 Speaker 1 ... he wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't right-wing Lubavitch, but he, he did a lot with Lubavitch because he had the bookstore, and they bought a lot of stuff, and they had a lot of business through Lubavitch, so he... And it was a g- a, a comfortable place for him to daven.

22:40 Speaker 2 So he davened in 770?

22:41 Speaker 1 He davened in 770, and he became part of the Lubavitch community to whatever extent. And, uh, enough so much that they put a sh- a, a, a Beth Karom Dean guy in their house on Shabbos on a regular basis. So he was, he was, he w- he wasn't like he was a, a guy from, uh, the, one of the other, uh, other, uh, schools there or other, other, uh, um, synagogues.

23:05 Speaker 2 Right.

23:06 Speaker 1 He, he was part of, he was part of the 770. And he did a lot of business with them, so he-

23:10 Speaker 2 Fascinating

23:10 Speaker 1 ... became a good part, and he knew everybody.

23:12 Speaker 2 Fascinating.

23:12 Speaker 1 So it was, for me, it was great because they were real people. I mean, she was an Israeli, Shoshana.

23:17 Speaker 2 Hmm.

23:18 Speaker 1 And he was born in, in Williamsburg. And they, I don't know how they hooked up, but they did. And, uh-

23:23 Speaker 2 And they had kids?

23:24 Speaker 1 They had kids, and I was the uncle to all these kids.

23:27 Speaker 2 Oh, you were old-

23:27 Speaker 1 Because I was there for, I was there for seven years or something like that.

23:30 Speaker 2 You were older than their kids?

23:31 Speaker 1 Yeah. I was... Yeah. They, they, they're, uh, at least 10, 12 years older than the oldest.

23:38 Speaker 2 Fascinating. Fascinating. So essentially, essentially this, this community do- adopted you as one of their own.

23:44 Speaker 1 Yeah. Pretty much.

23:45 Speaker 2 Hmm. Did you go home often while you were-

23:48 Speaker 1 No, I-

23:48 Speaker 2 You stayed in the state school

23:49 Speaker 1 ... summertime was the only time I went home. I... And, uh, and I think Pesach was the other time I would go home.

23:56 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

23:57 Speaker 1 Because it was a long holiday, and you know, it's a family holiday, basically.

24:01 Speaker 2 So if I could ask, like who, who was, who was paying for those trips? Was it the yeshiva? Did the order-

24:06 Speaker 1 Yeshiva. No, that was us.

24:07 Speaker 2 Your family?

24:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

24:08 Speaker 2 Okay.

24:08 Speaker 1 Family and, and-

24:09 Speaker 2 So you were still connected to your family, obviously.

24:11 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%.

24:11 Speaker 2 You were going home.

24:12 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

24:12 Speaker 2 They were still taking care of trips. Okay.

24:14 Speaker 1 And I, and actually, my second year there, I got my brother Ronnie to come.

24:18 Speaker 2 To the yeshiva, to the-

24:18 Speaker 1 To the yeshiva. And it took him about 20 minutes to say, "Not for me."

24:23 Speaker 2 Right. So that, 'cause that's what, that's what I'm getting at. Like, why didn't you say that?

24:28 Speaker 1 Different person.

24:29 Speaker 2 You liked it.

24:29 Speaker 1 Different person.

24:30 Speaker 2 But see, you could have said that at that point.

24:31 Speaker 1 I don't... Don't forget, I just came from three weeks of camp, so I was-

24:34 Speaker 2 Yeah, but you, uh, it wears off after a while.

24:37 Speaker 1 Yeah, but, but you understand, in the back of my mind, this is a place I had to be because it was gonna save the family money. Simple as that.

24:45 Speaker 2 So it started off as like, you under- a maturity thing. You understood you had to be there.

24:49 Speaker 1 So, and, and I did. But, but after a while, I mean...

24:53 Speaker 2 When did you feel that you wanted to be there?

24:57 Speaker 1 Uh, pretty much the first year. Once I was in there-

24:59 Speaker 2 Okay

25:00 Speaker 1 ... for a while, became part, I became part of what was going on there, but, but from the outside. I mean, I-

25:04 Speaker 2 Yeah.

25:05 Speaker 1 I... We had all kinds of seasons there. They had baseball card seasons. They had, uh, uh, we used to do things with bottle caps and, and, uh, whatever. And I re- I remember this one time that, uh, on, on the English holidays, like Presidents' Day, all the schools were off. We would learn till 3:00. Of course, we had lunch, and then we had a break for lunch, but until 3:00, and then the English teachers didn't come, so we had the afternoon off. Then we did Chazarah and night Seder at night. So we had the three hours there. But it was the day that the, the P- the Italians and, and the, uh, Spanish people that lived in the neighborhood, the boys and whatever, had the day off. So at lunchtime, we got out, as we always did, we... And they're, they're never there, but this was the holiday that they were. So we're playing punchball on Grant Square. Grant-- We were in Grant's Democratic Building, which he used, uh, back in the 1800s when he was running, and they made a square in front of the b-building that was-- we used. It was shaped like a diamond almost. It went like this.

26:12 Speaker 2 Right.

26:13 Speaker 1 Okay. And then, so we were playing, and so then these, uh, the, the young, uh, the neighborhood kids came over and said, "Get off. We're playing." I said, "No, no. We don't get off." And as they're, as they're being more pushy and more pushy, I'm noticing that all the other guys that was there with me are slowly slinking across the street to get away from the thing, and it's just me. So finally, I say to this guy, I said, "Listen, I got 30 minutes to exercise. If it's playing punchball or beating you up, I don't care what it's gonna be." And I start taking off my shirt. Okay? So he says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait a second." I said, "What do you want?" He said, "Wait for the big guy to get here." I said, "I'm not waiting for anybody. It's you and me." And he says, "Well, we wanna challenge for the court." So w- we did the challenge, and all the guys came back over, you know. But it was a guy, Guy Sam Levine. He became a principal in a couple day schools in, in Cleveland and whatever. Good guy, and, uh, from Massachusetts, actually, from Worcester. And the first time I met him, we were playing punchball in the gym, and he hit a ball in the corner of the gym.

27:22 Speaker 2 Wait, he was also in Bedford-Indy?

27:23 Speaker 1 He was in Bedford-Indy too, yeah.

27:25 Speaker 2 Huh.

27:26 Speaker 1 So he hit, he hit a ball in the corner of the gym, and he was already rounding second and coming towards third when the guy got the ball, and he threw it to me at third base. But he th- but Sam was about two feet or three feet from, uh, from h-hitting third base, touching third base. So I caught the ball in the air, and I just swung my arm and hit him before he's able to put his foot on third base. And he comes out like this, he wants to fight. I never met him before, right? He comes up, he wants to fight.

27:51 Speaker 2 Sam Levine.

27:52 Speaker 1 Sam Levine. He, he wants to fight 'cause I hit him.

27:54 Speaker 2 Right.

27:54 Speaker 1 I said, "I didn't hit you. You're out."

27:56 Speaker 2 I tagged you.

27:56 Speaker 1 And then I threw the ball, I threw the ball in the air, and he says, "Oh." Okay, so now we're... These, these, this gots him, right? And they're challenging for this guy hits the ball in the street, and I throw the ball as far as I can. And Sam was on first base, he came to home plate, and I threw the ball just to his left. And as he got the ball, he swung his arm and tagged the guy hard before he touched home plate. And the guy comes like this, he's ready to fight, you know, because he thinks he got hit by this guy. And Sam said, "No. You're out." Just like I did to him. "You're out."

28:24 Speaker 2 That's funny.

28:25 Speaker 1 And we had this cycle. So, so what happened was, years later we're, we-- Years later, we were in the Dan Panorama Hotel. We stayed w- for, for sukkahs, okay? And one of the first Yontif nights, in comes Sam Levine with his family, and he says hello. He di- he didn't know I was there, and says hello and whatever, and started talking, whatever. So he goes to his table. We, we were at our table. And then about 10 minutes later, a couple of his sons come over. "Are you really the Dave Shabbat that my father talks about all the time?"

28:56 Speaker 2 That's funny. That's funny.

28:57 Speaker 1 I, I said, "Yeah." I mean, I, I got known for, for, for, for, for sports instead of something else. But all right, you know.

29:04 Speaker 2 I mean, the, the whole thing is fascinating, this, th-this intermingling of a Washington boy with, with, uh, Brooklyn boys. I don't know where this Sam Levine came from, but he-

29:15 Speaker 1 Hasid-- Worcester, Massachusetts.

29:16 Speaker 2 Worcester, Massachusetts. I guess from Rabbi Fogelman's school.

29:19 Speaker 1 Yeah.

29:20 Speaker 2 Um, and then he went on to be a principal of-

29:24 Speaker 1 Other day s-

29:24 Speaker 2 ... non-Labavitch schools, right?

29:25 Speaker 1 Non-Labavitch schools.

29:25 Speaker 2 He wasn't in... I guess he also didn't consider himself Labavitch either.

29:29 Speaker 1 I, I don't...

29:30 Speaker 2 Maybe friendly.

29:30 Speaker 1 I, I, I still travel with Noam Chari.

29:32 Speaker 2 Oh, so you do?

29:33 Speaker 1 I, I, I mean, I did a lot of, a lot of, a lot of stuff.

29:35 Speaker 2 But you know what I, you know what I mean? It's not about, like, excluding people. It's more w- if you met him, would you assume that he went to Labavitch school?

29:43 Speaker 1 No.

29:44 Speaker 2 No.

29:44 Speaker 1 No.

29:44 Speaker 2 And so, but it's just fascinating, this history that, like, they-

29:48 Speaker 1 If you see me and I didn't have a yamaka on, you would think I was a worshiper.

29:50 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. No, no. But I'm not trying to say better or worse. I'm just... I think, like, today where things are such, are so much more, like, obvious and black and white, like, which school did you go to or did you know?

30:01 Speaker 1 Yeah.

30:01 Speaker 2 Which group did you associate with?

30:03 Speaker 1 Sure.

30:03 Speaker 2 Things were a lot more up in the air back then, right?

30:06 Speaker 1 Yeah.

30:06 Speaker 2 And so you have this school that's a lot more like a melting pot.

30:09 Speaker 1 Yeah.

30:09 Speaker 2 Um, which is fascinating. So you, you were talking ear-

30:12 Speaker 1 You know what, what the beauty was-

30:14 Speaker 2 Yeah

30:15 Speaker 1 ... whether you were from or not, everybody got along.

30:18 Speaker 2 Right.

30:19 Speaker 1 And everybody was friends. It was a, a very special thing. It, it was, it was a Labavitch thing.

30:26 Speaker 2 Yeah.

30:26 Speaker 1 Blend in and be part of the, the people.

30:28 Speaker 2 Right.

30:28 Speaker 1 I mean, and, and that's, that's what it felt like. It was really, I mean-

30:31 Speaker 2 It was a Labavitch-

30:31 Speaker 1 ... it was very special

30:32 Speaker 2 ... it was a Labavitch thing, but I've also heard it from others at that time. You know, it was... There were, there were fewer of us.

30:39 Speaker 1 Yeah.

30:39 Speaker 2 It was right after the war. There were fewer Jews in general, certainly in this country. There were fewer religious Jews in this country, and people understood that they, they, you know, didn't have the luxury of, of, of, of doing it on their own. They had to do it with others, right?

30:56 Speaker 1 Right.

30:56 Speaker 2 They, they... You, you took all the help you could get. So it was-

31:00 Speaker 1 It's true

31:00 Speaker 2 ... it w- you know, it was a different time, and I'm not trying to wax nostalgic about it. I just think it's, it's just, it's, it's an important kind of ... piece of history to know about. Um, so you were saying earlier that you, you would eat by the floors on, on, on, on Shabbos and you s- and they davened at 770. So that's where we, uh, the story goes from, you know, Washington, DC, Gan Israel, Bedford and Dean, Rabbi Tannenbaum, Rabbi Shraga. Now we start getting to the, the Mid-Labavich, and of course, what, what, what we would end up talking about is, is the Rebbe, right? What, what, what was that like for you as a Washington, DC boy? Like, what was the first Shabbos like? Was that the first time you saw the Rebbe when you got there?

31:46 Speaker 1 Yeah, pretty much.

31:47 Speaker 2 What was that like?

31:50 Speaker 1 I couldn't even tell you. I don't even remember. It wasn't, it wasn't anything significant to me at the time because the Rebbe didn't mean anything to me at that point.

31:57 Speaker 2 Right.

31:57 Speaker 1 You know? It's, it was, uh, he w- he was the head guy. Okay.

31:59 Speaker 2 Another rabbi, right.

32:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. The head guy, big deal. Okay.

32:02 Speaker 2 Right.

32:02 Speaker 1 You know?

32:02 Speaker 2 Right.

32:03 Speaker 1 So, but later on-

32:05 Speaker 2 Was it something that they spoke about in school?

32:08 Speaker 1 Not much.

32:08 Speaker 2 Not much.

32:09 Speaker 1 No, we, we learned. We did stuff. I mean-

32:11 Speaker 2 Right.

32:12 Speaker 1 But-

32:12 Speaker 2 Right, but I'm saying, like, it wasn't like a big part of the school, like, you know, you're gonna see the Rebbe, like this is-

32:18 Speaker 1 No. No, no. It was, at least from my perspective at the time, it, it wasn't so much the Rebbe. It was learning and advancing and understanding and, and being, learning how to become a frum person.

32:30 Speaker 2 Right. So, s-so, so in the beginning, the Rebbe was just... I mean, you're also 10 years old, to be fair.

32:35 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

32:35 Speaker 2 You're 10 years old.

32:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

32:37 Speaker 2 Um, so what, what did stand out to you? Or did anything stand out to you when you first come to the shul? And now it's, I would guess that now it's beginning to feel a little bit different than Washington, DC.

32:47 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. You know what the amazing thing was? The amazing thing was Friday night-

32:53 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

32:54 Speaker 1 ... you go, come to the, the davening. In those y- in those days, we davened upstairs in 770. Okay?

33:02 Speaker 2 Right.

33:02 Speaker 1 There wasn't that many guys.

33:04 Speaker 2 I don't think there was a downstairs 770 back then.

33:06 Speaker 1 No, they had, they had the area there. They had the sukkah.

33:08 Speaker 2 The courtyard.

33:09 Speaker 1 Yeah, the courtyard.

33:09 Speaker 2 But there was no, like, shul downstairs.

33:11 Speaker 1 No, no. They, now they've built out the whole building.

33:13 Speaker 2 Right.

33:13 Speaker 1 But in those days, everybody davened, you know, the Rebbe's office-

33:16 Speaker 2 Right

33:16 Speaker 1 ... and then there's a hallway, and there's a room over there.

33:18 Speaker 2 Yeah, the basement there was shul.

33:19 Speaker 1 That's, that, that's, that's where everybody davened.

33:21 Speaker 2 Right.

33:22 Speaker 1 Okay? And that, that's, that's what it was. I mean, and so it didn't, didn't feel anything.

33:27 Speaker 2 And what was that like for you?

33:31 Speaker 1 Nothing. Nothing. I mean, it was a shul.

33:33 Speaker 2 It was the first time you're seeing a real shul.

33:35 Speaker 1 Yeah. Uh, not, not first a real. I davened in, in, in DC, but-

33:39 Speaker 2 Right

33:39 Speaker 1 ... but, but the thing was, it was my first experience with the Rebbe, and it was, like, more of a, "So what?"

33:47 Speaker 2 Hmm.

33:47 Speaker 1 Just another guy. I mean, he's another guy. I mean, what did I know? You know, I, what did I see? Okay, until, until later on, I learned a lot more about him. I mean, I remember, I remember one night there's a murmur going around 770. Well, this was, I, I think, uh, it was, uh, on a Shabbos, Friday night. And what was the murmur? There was a lady that gave birth to a baby in Montreal. The baby wasn't doing well, and the medications they were giving her was, it, she just wasn't, the baby wasn't getting better.

34:21 Speaker 2 Hmm.

34:21 Speaker 1 So they called the Rebbe for a berakhah for the baby, she'd get better. The Rebbe didn't give him a berakhah. He s- he, he said back to them, "Check the medications."

34:30 Speaker 2 Hmm.

34:32 Speaker 1 No berakhah on medication. Get a call motzei Shabbos. They checked the medications. She was given the wrong medication, the baby, and now that she's on the right medication, she's getting better. How can... I mean, tell, you tell me.

34:47 Speaker 2 So how old were you when you heard that story?

34:49 Speaker 1 Uh, I don't know, about 14 or something like that.

34:51 Speaker 2 So a few years after you got there.

34:52 Speaker 1 So, so, so that, I mean, it, it b- I mean, how does a guy do that?

34:55 Speaker 2 Right.

34:56 Speaker 1 I mean, there, there's gotta be something. I mean, believe, not believe, wanna believe, but don't wanna believe. This, this happened while I was there.

35:05 Speaker 2 Hmm.

35:05 Speaker 1 I s- I s- I, I heard it happen.

35:07 Speaker 2 So what, how did you process it?

35:10 Speaker 1 I processed it by, by respecting the Rebbe a lot more than I ever did. I mean, it, to me, he was just another guy. I remember, I think I was 15. I bought my first pair of shoes personally. It was always bought through my, my parents, my family, whatever I would, all my clothes was. But, but here I needed a pair of shoes, and I was in, I was in yeshiva, so I got, I got $10 or whatever, and I went out and bought a pair of Tom McAn's. Okay. So I went to the store, and this is my first pair of shoes, and I'm looking at the store, and I see a patent leather black, black shoes, which I said, "Wow, I've never seen," because they don't wear patent leather in, in Lubavitch. So, and so I said, "I like that." And then there was one that had little gold rings, little rings, you know, about a, a, a fifth of the s- uh, a, a tenth of the size of th- this water bottle cap. Little rings going around the, the toe of the shoe.

36:00 Speaker 2 Huh.

36:00 Speaker 1 And I said, I said, "Shdadi." I said, "That, that is great."

36:04 Speaker 2 Right.

36:05 Speaker 1 "That is great. I wanna wear them in shul tonight." I bought them.

36:08 Speaker 2 Huh.

36:09 Speaker 1 Okay? So here it is, Friday night. I'm, I'm in 770 with a throng of people that are waiting for the Rebbe to come down, and the Rebbe comes down. This time, his, his aisle that they create, everybody just moves, and they create aisle straight to his seat. This time, the aisle opens up, I'm on the outside. Uh, you know, where the Rebbe walks. I'm, I'm on the path. I'm on the pathway.

36:29 Speaker 2 You're in the front row.

36:30 Speaker 1 So, no. So here, yeah. The path goes this way.

36:33 Speaker 2 Right.

36:33 Speaker 1 And I'm on one of the sides.

36:34 Speaker 2 Yeah.

36:34 Speaker 1 I was on the left side.

36:35 Speaker 2 Right.

36:35 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe comes through the area saying, "Good Shabbos everybody. Good Shabbos. Good Shabbos." You know, he's going. Then he gets to me, he says, "Good Shabbos." He goes, he looks at the shoes and goes, "Huh?" And then he catches himself, and he goes, "Oh, Good Shabbos. Good Shabbos." He goes on. And he goes, "What?" So I, I got the Rebbe's attention with a pair of shoes. But just, I mean, the time there, I mean-

37:02 Speaker 2 But, but-

37:02 Speaker 1 I could, I could've gone to any yeshiva. I mean, you could, I could've gone to, to, to, you know-

37:06 Speaker 2 Torbadas, any. Right

37:09 Speaker 1 There's only one Rebbe.

37:11 Speaker 2 Hmm.

37:12 Speaker 1 I took Re- One night we're-- I was at a wedding at the Imperial Manor in, uh, in, in, in Brooklyn. It's a wedding hall on Kings Highway in, near Ocean Parkway, right? So I'm in the lobby, and my wife is upstairs, and-

37:26 Speaker 2 Oh, so this is years later.

37:27 Speaker 1 This is years later. This is after I'm, I'm out of yeshiva already. I'm married already, right?

37:30 Speaker 2 Right, right, right.

37:31 Speaker 1 And there's these two g- two bachurim saying, "You have to, you take him." "No, I took him last time. You take him. You take him. You take... I, I, I'm not-- I don't wanna take him. It's your turn." And I said, "Who's gotta take who? What's going on over here? What's this, uh, what's this fierce argument about take who?"

37:45 Speaker 2 Right.

37:45 Speaker 1 "One of us has to take Reb Moshe home after, after the chasuna."

37:49 Speaker 2 Reb Moshe Feinstein.

37:50 Speaker 1 Yeah. I said, "That's not true." They go, "Huh?" I said, "I'll take Reb Moshe home." "Are you kidding? Drive Reb Moshe home? Are you kidding?"

37:59 Speaker 2 That's-

38:00 Speaker 1 To me, that was like, God.

38:02 Speaker 2 Right.

38:02 Speaker 1 I mean, how lucky can you get to drive him home?

38:05 Speaker 2 Right.

38:06 Speaker 1 So the time came. I told my wife, I said, "I'll be gone for an hour 'cause I'm taking Reb Moshe home." She said, "We're here at a wedding. What are you doing?" You know, whatever. So I get in the car with another guy, and I, I'm taking him to, to the yeshiva on the Lower East Side, and as we're driving, he interrupts himself. He says, "If you make a left at this right and do the second right, we'll save thirty seconds."

38:29 Speaker 2 That's what Reb Moshe said.

38:30 Speaker 1 Yeah. And I go, "Huh? He knows the streets? He knows the streets to save time? I know the streets, but I... That it'll be thirty seconds faster. I mean, what is this guy... I mean, this guy is something else."

38:43 Speaker 2 Right.

38:44 Speaker 1 I mean, to heck with Torah, you know? I mean, I'm seriously, this, this-

38:47 Speaker 2 This is-

38:48 Speaker 1 This guy is connected. This guy is, is a real deal.

38:51 Speaker 2 This is impressive.

38:52 Speaker 1 And, and it, it, it just blew me away. It just blew me away, you know? And, uh, he's not the one I would go to, to, to check whether I should change a medication or not. You know, like the lady in, in Toronto. I would go to the Rebbe for that. But if I wanted directions, I would go to Reb Moshe.

39:12 Speaker 2 Um, right. So, so you, um... When, when, when did you, when d- when did you start, uh, or was there a point where they start encouraging you in the yeshiva to, to, um, you know, go into yechidas or, like, is there, is there, is there a point where you start interacting-

39:35 Speaker 1 Birthdays

39:35 Speaker 2 ... with the Rebbe directly?

39:36 Speaker 1 Birthdays.

39:37 Speaker 2 What, from the very get-go?

39:38 Speaker 1 From the very get-go. The birthday wish, you would go into the Rebbe for a bracha.

39:41 Speaker 2 Every boy in the school or, or the dorm boys?

39:44 Speaker 1 I, I don't know whether every boy in the school, but for me, I-- that's the way I was taught to do it.

39:48 Speaker 2 So, so your eleventh birthday, you went in-

39:51 Speaker 1 I was a little bit later than that. I-

39:52 Speaker 2 So bar mitzvah.

39:53 Speaker 1 Yeah. I was too young to do. I mean-

39:54 Speaker 2 So bar mitzvah

39:54 Speaker 1 ... I'm not gonna be able to go there by myself yet.

39:56 Speaker 2 So bar mitzvah.

39:57 Speaker 1 So sometime after that, sometime in my teen years is, is when it, when it started going.

40:01 Speaker 2 Okay.

40:01 Speaker 1 Yeah.

40:02 Speaker 2 What was that like?

40:11 Speaker 1 It's like-

40:15 Speaker 2 I mean, first of all-

40:16 Speaker 1 You, you, you know ba-

40:16 Speaker 2 Go ahead

40:16 Speaker 1 ... you know b- you know basketball? Larry Bird is one of the greatest players.

40:21 Speaker 2 Right.

40:21 Speaker 1 And, and everybody wants to be, know Larry Bird or be with Larry Bird. Okay? So I'm saying being with the Rebbe is a million times better than being with a guy like Larry Bird. That's someone that you've held in, in esteem all your life, but the Rebbe was just... You, you walked in the room with him, you felt it.

40:41 Speaker 2 Just paint the picture to me. Who, who, who coach, who coaches you about the yechidas? Who tells you what this is about?

40:47 Speaker 1 I'm sure, I'm not sure it was Rabbi Groner or Rabbi Klein. I mean-

40:50 Speaker 2 No, but from the school.

40:51 Speaker 1 From the school?

40:51 Speaker 2 Someone tells you what it is. Like, this is how you should prepare-

40:54 Speaker 1 No

40:54 Speaker 2 ... and this is what you should write.

40:55 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. The, the, the custom is that you go to the Rebbe before your birthday, get a bracha.

41:01 Speaker 2 Right.

41:01 Speaker 1 That's, I mean, that's all I-

41:02 Speaker 2 That's, that's all they told you?

41:04 Speaker 1 That's all it was. I mean, it wasn't... And I guess as, as, as it-

41:08 Speaker 2 So you walk, you walk in. You're, you're not wearing a black hat, right? You don't, you don't do that. Uh, you're wearing a suit. What are you doing?

41:14 Speaker 1 I don't even think I wore a suit.

41:16 Speaker 2 Yeah. Button-down shirt, pair of pants.

41:18 Speaker 1 Pretty much.

41:19 Speaker 2 Knock on the door.

41:20 Speaker 1 No. Rabbi Groner opens the door.

41:22 Speaker 2 And he's in there with you?

41:23 Speaker 1 No. He clo- And then he closes the door, and I'll never forget when my, when the, uh, my first wife, when we, we went to the Rebbe for a bracha, right? I'm not... And so he says, "Dave, it's, it's almost ten o'clock. Ten o'clock the Rebbe, everybody comes to 778 the Rebbe for, for, for maariv." "You don't have to wait till after that." "Yeah, but the Rebbe's gonna do maariv fifteen minutes. Then he's gonna come and eat something and rest up a little between the yechidas, and these will start in forty-five minutes. So I... And then I have to take this girl to Stern College. It's a forty-five minute at least or an hour ride by subway if you get the train right away, and then-"

41:57 Speaker 2 You're talking, you're talking about when you went in for a bracha before you got engaged.

42:00 Speaker 1 For, for, uh, I was engaged, but before, as a, as a bracha-

42:03 Speaker 2 Before the wedding

42:03 Speaker 1 ... right. From the Rebbe. I mean, we already decided we're gonna get married, so I wanted that, now we're gonna get a bracha for the marriage, at the marriage.

42:09 Speaker 2 For the marriage. Yeah.

42:10 Speaker 1 So, uh, I said, "It's gonna be-- I won't, I won't be able to make morning seder. I'll, I'll be back three o'clock in the morning." Well, I mean, the, uh... "Please. I mean, it's just a minute. It's just a bracha for a chasuna. You know what the Rebbe takes for that. It's just a minute."

42:22 Speaker 2 This is Rabbi Groner or Rabbi Chodikov?

42:25 Speaker 1 Groner. I think it was Rabbi Groner. And, uh, so we go in, and all of a sudden, I'm starting to find out things about my, my wife to be's grandfather. As a ten-year-old, he left home and walked days to Brisk yeshiva.

42:47 Speaker 2 But, but the Rebbe was, the Rebbe was asking your-

42:50 Speaker 1 My future wife about her, her grandfather.

42:53 Speaker 2 And, and she was telling him-

42:54 Speaker 1 And she was telling him these things.

42:55 Speaker 2 Does the Rebbe know him from before?

42:56 Speaker 1 He had no idea who he was.

42:58 Speaker 2 He was just asking.

42:59 Speaker 1 He had a-- He, he got something from me. He was, he, he didn't ask about my grandfather.

43:03 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

43:04 Speaker 1 Okay? And then he, he, as a 10-year-old, he, he walked to Brisk, ate whatever they had there to soup as meal, and slept on the bench till the next day.

43:14 Speaker 2 This is your-

43:14 Speaker 1 He did that for about ten days, and finally someone realized that that's what he was doing, and they took him into their house.

43:19 Speaker 2 Right.

43:20 Speaker 1 And he, he got S-, he got, he got Smita there. He wa- he was a-

43:24 Speaker 2 Did-- Wha- was the Rebbe looking, did the Rebbe draw something out of that, like a message for you or just-

43:29 Speaker 1 I, I, I don't, I don't, I don't remember. I mean, but he-- What, what blew me away was he, he could feel in her something that I had no idea, and I should have maybe had an idea because I know the guy, you know? I mean, but he-

43:44 Speaker 2 Oh, you had met your father-in-law before?

43:45 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Her grandfather.

43:47 Speaker 2 Oh, it's her grandfather.

43:49 Speaker 1 Her grandfather. So I've met him, but yes, he, he, he knew Ben Shi Bar Har. Yes, he could learn. Yes, he could do all this, so.

43:57 Speaker 2 Right.

43:57 Speaker 1 And what, what's it... But I didn't know, a ten-year-old. Can you imagine, can you imagine you leaving your house at ten years old and walking, walking for days to go to yeshiva-

44:06 Speaker 2 Well, I can-

44:06 Speaker 1 And then sleep on the bench

44:07 Speaker 2 ... I can imagine the leaving home at ten years old. I can't imagine the rest of it. I, I left home at that age.

44:12 Speaker 1 Okay. So that-

44:12 Speaker 2 But, but not, but not... But a lot more comfortable.

44:15 Speaker 1 But, but, but he-

44:15 Speaker 2 Yes

44:16 Speaker 1 ... here's, here's what he-

44:17 Speaker 2 Yes

44:17 Speaker 1 ... this guy did. He-

44:18 Speaker 2 Yes

44:18 Speaker 1 ... and, and

44:20 Speaker 2 So, so, and-

44:20 Speaker 1 He shouldn't-- He wouldn't-- I mean, I didn't know

44:22 Speaker 2 So you, so y- But let, but let's go back, let's go back to the first Yechidas, uh, or one of the first ones that you remember. Um, you walk in, you walk in, um, Rebbe opens the door, then closes it behind you. What are you asking? What does it look like?

44:37 Speaker 1 Yeah.

44:37 Speaker 2 Describe to someone who's-

44:38 Speaker 1 You know, he knows-

44:38 Speaker 2 Describe to someone who's never seen a picture

44:39 Speaker 1 ... he knows that you're here for bracha for, for your, uh, your birthday.

44:44 Speaker 2 You say something?

44:46 Speaker 1 And he gives you a bracha, and I said thank you, and then I'm out.

44:50 Speaker 2 What language did he give you a bra-

44:52 Speaker 1 English

44:52 Speaker 2 ... he spoke to you in English?

44:54 Speaker 1 If you spoke English, he spoke English.

44:55 Speaker 2 And what's a bracha? That you should have a good year? You-

44:58 Speaker 1 I don't remember.

44:59 Speaker 2 Okay. So you weren't asking for advice at that point or-

45:01 Speaker 1 Oh, no, no. Nothing at all

45:02 Speaker 2 ... questions. It was just-

45:03 Speaker 1 This was just, this is a bracha. You go in, you get your bracha, and you're out.

45:07 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. And what-- Did it, did it mean something to you at the time?

45:11 Speaker 1 Custom.

45:12 Speaker 2 Custom.

45:12 Speaker 1 In mind set, in mind set, this is what you do if you're in Lubavitch.

45:15 Speaker 2 Right.

45:16 Speaker 1 But it didn't mean anything that... I, I didn't see a change in my life any.

45:21 Speaker 2 Did at some point-

45:21 Speaker 1 But I don't know that because who knows what the life would've been without the bracha? I don't know

45:25 Speaker 2 At, at some point, did it start ma- did it start meaning more?

45:28 Speaker 1 No, not for me.

45:30 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

45:32 Speaker 1 Not for me. I mean, there is no question in my mind that the Rebbe had a connection that probably few people, if anybody else, ever had at the time he was around.

45:48 Speaker 2 Connection with what?

45:49 Speaker 1 Kadosh Baruch Hu. He had a connection. I remember once the, some, uh, some soldiers from Israel came for a bracha from him because the, the war that was going on. I'm not sure which war it was then. And the Rebbe's telling him, "This hill, can't lose it. This, this over here, you can't. You have to make sure you protect it and keep it." And he keeps going over these, these things. So when they came out, they said, "These are all important places. How does, how does he know that? Did he go to Israel and get a tour?"

46:18 Speaker 2 Right.

46:19 Speaker 1 Rebbe's never been to Israel, but he knew these things were strategic for him, and he made sure that they knew that was something you gotta keep at all costs to keep Israel going.

46:30 Speaker 2 Homesick for Lubavitch is brought to you by Yuvala Media, a boutique video production company servicing the Chabad and Jewish community. Since opening ten years ago, Yuvala Media has pushed the boundaries of artistic and thoughtful storytelling in the community with an insistence on there always being a memorable story as well as a beautiful and striking visual image that we believe is second to none. Over the years, we have worked with Chabad organizations around the country, as well as large organizations like Bonioela, Torah Mesora, and Atzalathon, guided by the belief that your story is absolutely worth telling with depth and creativity. If you are looking to tell your story with a video, please reach out to us at hello@yuvalamedia.com. Again, that is hello@yuvalamedia.com. A link can be found in the show notes. And now, back to the podcast. So let me ask you a question. You'll tell me if it, you'll tell me if I, if I'm pushing too hard, but, uh, you know, the... You're, you're, you're in the presence of someone that's, at the very least, very unusual, right? Um-

47:40 Speaker 1 I would say special.

47:41 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah. Right. There are many stories. No, I'm just, I'm just... I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm painting it as conservative as possible, like without, without any hyperbole or anything.

47:50 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

47:51 Speaker 2 Right? A unique, unique individual. Uh, certainly a charismatic individual and, and a holy individual, right? There are many people who have said that, you know, they, they saw the, the... You know, they were so impressed by the Rebbe, so impressed by the, by, by the world around him, the, the court around him, that it drew them into becoming full-blown Lubavitchers, right? You, you didn't take that path.

48:19 Speaker 1 I was younger, too. I was-

48:20 Speaker 2 No, no, but you were there for many years, you said

48:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, but I was younger. I mean, it was like-

48:23 Speaker 2 Right. No, no, I, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not putting-

48:26 Speaker 1 You know, these all, these people are looking for something at that point

48:28 Speaker 2 So that's what I'm trying to get to. I'm not putting you on the stand. I, I find it inter-- I just find it... I, I find... Was there any pressure or any, like, people trying to, like, proselytize, pull you in, "Let's make David a full-blown Lubavitcher"? Or like, you know, in your mind, there was just maybe processes like this is just part of life. Life is taking me a bunch-

48:47 Speaker 1 You know, the only time I have anything that I can remember like that, and it was a negative for me.

48:52 Speaker 2 Mm.

48:53 Speaker 1 Okay? See, see my hair. That's, I've had that s- almost forever, as far as this head of hair and cut this way. It hasn't changed.

49:01 Speaker 2 It's real, you're saying?

49:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, I'm in Rabbi Goldman's class, the eighth, eighth grade. And-

49:10 Speaker 2 Is that Rabbi Shimon Goldman? You don't-

49:12 Speaker 1 No, no, no. I don't remember his first name. But he taught the eighth grade-

49:16 Speaker 2 Mm

49:16 Speaker 1 ... in, in Hebrew studies. Okay? And my seat, h- here's the desk. Um, and on the right-hand side where the desk were, I was right in front of him. So wherever he stand to talk or wherever, I was right... I, I, I got it straight from his mouth, you know? I did-- I didn't hear from 10 feet back or whatever.

49:33 Speaker 2 He was a good teacher?

49:34 Speaker 1 He was a good teacher, but I was, I was in tune. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm ready, you know? Bring it on. And, uh, I was doing so well that after Rabbi Tannenbaum came in and tested the class, about a week later, he calls me in the class and says, "Dave." He says, "I think your, your ability is that you should be go up, go to a grade higher than what you are now. I think you can do it, and I think it'd be something good for you and something," you know. I said, I said, "Great." He says, "But there's one condition." I said, "What's that?" He says, "You have to cut your hair zero one, two or two."

50:12 Speaker 2 So you're saying like the, the-

50:14 Speaker 1 The-

50:14 Speaker 2 Just say the-

50:14 Speaker 1 Yeah. Zero. the, you know, the rate has zero, one, and two, and they just-

50:17 Speaker 2 Just leave the peyes.

50:18 Speaker 1 Just leave the peyes and just, just do, just do that. And I said, I said, "Why?" He said, "Because that grade up is all of our Chassidim, and to have you in there with your hair might, might cause problems." I said, I said, "Rabbi Tannenbaum." I said, "You mean to tell me that, that I deserve to go into that class, but because of the way I look, I can't?" He said, "Basically, yes." I said, I said, "Well, when you change your mind, you call me, because as of today, I stopped learning." That's it. So I went to class, I got my Gemara and sat down in the back and went to sleep. And Rabbi Goldman's going, "What the heck is going on?" So th- that was towards the end of the year already. So next year, I got put in a class with, with the, with the, with a lot of Amer- a lot of the American kids that didn't have much background, and they were a little difficult, okay? So after two days, uh, Rabbi Brisky was a Rebbe, good guy. He was a Rebbe. So what happened was, is that after two days of, of him pulling at us here because these kids weren't, didn't wanna learn, and they all causing all kinds, making all kinds of noise, do whatever they were doing. So I go over to the guys and I said, "Hey, guys, how would you like to have a 20-minute coffee break in the middle of the day?" "Oh, really?

51:40 Speaker 1 What do we gotta do?" I said, "All you gotta do is be respectful, don't make noise in class, and try as hard as you can to study. If you do that, I'll see if I can get you a 20-minute coffee break in the middle of the day." "Okay." So I go to Rabbi Brisky and say, "Rabbi Brisky." I said, "How would you like to have an easy class and kids, kids at least trying? Not, not, not that they're gonna know, but at least gonna be trying, and they won't be disruptive, and they won't be..." He said, "Really?" I said... He says, "What do I gotta do?" I said, "You gotta give them a 15-minute coffee break in the middle of the day, and your, your life will change." And he says, "Okay, we'll try it for a week." Well, a week was the rest of the year because of it, and it was-- He was so happy, and the kids studied. And then it, it was that year that Rabbi Jacobson and Rabbi Tannen- Rabbi Tannerman used to come in and test, you know, every three months or whatever. So he was coming in to test the class, okay? And it w- and this time, Rabbi Jacobson, of course, he was now looking for kids to fill a new school. He was the only that knew how to learn, so these guys come in. We talked about that a little while ago. So, so-

52:48 Speaker 2 No, but, but, but-

52:49 Speaker 1 It, it, it-

52:49 Speaker 2 But, but, but for the people listening here, talk.

52:51 Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay. So, so, so what essentially, so what happened was, is that-

52:56 Speaker 2 Was this the first time you were meeting Rabbi Jacobson?

52:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

52:59 Speaker 2 So describe him for, I never-

53:00 Speaker 1 Like white beard, talk nice, pleasant, l- nice guy. Seemingly a nice guy. Uh, very quiet, you know? Reser- reserved.

53:11 Speaker 2 Tall, tall? Short?

53:12 Speaker 1 He was, uh, about 5'5", something like that. W-white beard, down, you know, nice, f- full-sized white beard.

53:19 Speaker 2 Oh, so he was older already at that time.

53:20 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I mean, he... F for brains. He was one of the guys that sat behind the Rebbe.

53:26 Speaker 2 Right.

53:26 Speaker 1 So he was, uh, you know, no, no slouch.

53:29 Speaker 2 No slouch.

53:30 Speaker 1 Okay. So-

53:31 Speaker 2 I mean, for people listening who aren't familiar, Rabbi Jacobson was sent by the previous Rebbe to-

53:36 Speaker 1 Right, to establish a base here for the, them to come in and, and become part of the American-

53:41 Speaker 2 Right. He came before the previous Rebbe.

53:42 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. He came. He set everything up. He got ev- he got it all going.

53:45 Speaker 2 And he was very much involved in, in the rescue, the Feige Kreplach and so on.

53:49 Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah, 100%.

53:50 Speaker 2 Yeah. So-

53:51 Speaker 1 Very special guy. So, so after I did my thing-

53:55 Speaker 2 How was his English?

53:56 Speaker 1 English was, uh, good. I mean, he had to speak with people.

53:58 Speaker 2 Right.

53:59 Speaker 1 I mean, he came to... It m- it may, it may not have been good his first couple years here, but-

54:02 Speaker 2 I'm saying he struck you as like, uh, like Americanized at all or-

54:05 Speaker 1 Yeah, he's, uh, a regular guy.

54:07 Speaker 2 Regular guy.

54:07 Speaker 1 A regular guy, but a special regular guy.

54:09 Speaker 2 Right.

54:10 Speaker 1 So, uh, after I did my thing, I said, "Excuse me." I said, "I don't understand something. I have a question." So they said, "Ask your question." So I asked the question, and Rabbi Brisky and Rabbi Jacobson didn't know the answer.

54:21 Speaker 2 A question on the Gemara?

54:22 Speaker 1 On the Gemara.

54:23 Speaker 2 Okay.

54:23 Speaker 1 And they didn't know the answer. So at that point, Rabbi Jacobson said, "I want him." So he had his, he had his eyes out for me. So n- now he's asking me to come to this thing he's starting because I was, that was my f- my, my senior year in high school, and he wanted me to come here and be part of the group.

54:40 Speaker 2 So tell us, so, so tell us a little bit about this group. What was this group?

54:43 Speaker 1 This group was, uh... Which one was he taught there? The guy in England, Lew, Shmuley Lew-

54:48 Speaker 2 Yes

54:48 Speaker 1 ... was one of the teachers there.

54:50 Speaker 2 He was a teacher?

54:50 Speaker 1 Yeah. He was a, he was part of the group. Yeah. Yeah.

54:55 Speaker 2 So he was already, he was already older.

54:56 Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, yeah.

54:57 Speaker 2 And he was teaching-

54:58 Speaker 1 He's older than me too, so.

54:59 Speaker 2 So what was this group? There was a-

55:01 Speaker 1 So what, what he did, Rabbi Jacobson got guys that had no background to come in, and they w- they would learn, and they would get Hashkafa, and they would get different things.

55:11 Speaker 2 And so the-

55:11 Speaker 1 And-

55:11 Speaker 2 And they sat where? In, in the 770?

55:14 Speaker 1 The, the, we, the area we used, you know, the women's section in 770.

55:18 Speaker 2 The small women's section upstairs. Yeah.

55:20 Speaker 1 Yeah. So before they got all the buildings and everything-

55:22 Speaker 2 Right

55:22 Speaker 1 ... there was, it used to be a Sukkah there.

55:24 Speaker 2 Right.

55:24 Speaker 1 And there was a ledge that people would look at, and the Rebbe would have a farbrengen. He would sit opposite that, and the, and the ladies could hear what he was ta- talking about.

55:31 Speaker 2 Oh, you're talking about outside.

55:33 Speaker 1 The, the, the, this, the, there was no... To, when you're facing 770, to the left, there was a driveway to go through.

55:40 Speaker 2 Right.

55:40 Speaker 1 Okay?

55:40 Speaker 2 Right.

55:41 Speaker 1 And then it went down, and then, then there was a back, a back area. The, I don't know whether there was a building there before, but that's where they used to put the Sukkah.

55:48 Speaker 2 Right.

55:49 Speaker 1 And the Sukkah at one, at one point, stayed up all year round, and on Shabbos before Roshim, the Rebbe would, would do his, his talks there.

55:57 Speaker 2 Right.

55:57 Speaker 1 And so, of course, there's room for everybody, and it grew and grew and it grew. I, I, I still remember, I don't know if I said this before or not, but the farbrengen there, there was s- so little space. You know those long benches that they have at the table that's the size of an eight-foot table?

56:09 Speaker 2 Right.

56:10 Speaker 1 Eight-foot bench. So they would put four benches against the wall, one, uh, one, two, three, four on the ground, and then they'd take another three, the, the, uh, the wall. It's next to the wall, next to the wall, so now there's a bench that has nothing on it, and they do that four times. So the bachurim could stand on the benches one, two, three, four high, so there'd be enough room, and they were taking space that would, it would, that would take one person, now they-they're getting four or five people in there, so that there would be enough space for everybody to hear the Rebbe. And so I, I, the first time I saw it, I go, "Whoa." I don't... They don't do that now. I mean, I'm sure not. Um, it's, uh, def- there, there's no Rebbe talking.

56:48 Speaker 2 You spent a lot of time with the farbrengens?

56:51 Speaker 1 What's once a month?

56:52 Speaker 2 Is you would go?

56:53 Speaker 1 I would go. I mean, what, uh, you know.

56:55 Speaker 2 At that point, you understood enough Yiddish to understand what was being said?

56:57 Speaker 1 I, uh, understand what's said, but, but I would go because y- you sort of had to be there, and if, you know, once you're seen or whatever, I mean, and they couldn't tell if you're there or not after, because it's so crowded. I mean, I'd go and be seen and wanna listen, and, and, uh, the Rebbe's voice was very quiet. You know, you could hear it, but it wasn't something that registered well with me. So I-

57:19 Speaker 2 On Shabbos.

57:20 Speaker 1 On Sha- when he did these farbrengens, yeah.

57:22 Speaker 2 The Shabbos ones, right.

57:23 Speaker 1 Right. So, uh-

57:26 Speaker 2 So you would go for a little bit and leave?

57:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. And, and the truth is e- everybody else knew the farbrengen, and so all the, the young Israel people and all the other ones would come around and be outside, so they would meet and have a little, uh, get-together.

57:40 Speaker 2 Outside the farbrengen.

57:41 Speaker 1 Outs- out, in, on Eastern Parkway. You know, they come outside. They have the, they have the, uh, the service area there, the service road. Then you have the, where the benches and stuff, and then you have the main road.

57:50 Speaker 2 Right.

57:50 Speaker 1 On both sides of the street, so people would be there, and they would, uh, get together. This was a Shabbos event, and they knew every Shabbos Rav Avraham was the schedule that they could be there because people would be there. So they, they had their own thing going that, aside from what, what the Rebbe's, Rebbe, Rebbe's actual was.

58:04 Speaker 2 Like the tailgate almost, like a tailgate party.

58:06 Speaker 1 Well, yeah, the tailgate's still part of the farbrengen. These guys weren't part of the farbrengen. They were there just to socialize.

58:12 Speaker 2 No, but I'm saying the tailgate's, like, outside the stadium.

58:14 Speaker 1 Right, right, right. But the, but the guys at the tailgate were very interested in what was going in the stadium.

58:19 Speaker 2 I see.

58:19 Speaker 1 These people weren't interested in what was going on. They were there just to socialize.

58:22 Speaker 2 I see. I see. I see. So you, you, you, you, you went between the two? You would go farbrengen-

58:29 Speaker 1 Well, I, that-

58:30 Speaker 2 You'd go socialize

58:31 Speaker 1 ... yeah, well, uh, but that made a lot of friends that way.

58:33 Speaker 2 Right.

58:33 Speaker 1 Yeah.

58:34 Speaker 2 Right. Um, was there anything about the farbrengens that stu- that, that, that stand out to you today? Any, any, any moments that, uh-

58:42 Speaker 1 The, the, the thing that stands out, okay, is how this one individual could know so much and have it all up in their head. To me, that was the most mind-blowing thing. He would give these farbrengens that they would then write down. People-- They had eight people memorizing what he's doing, and they afterwards they pr- they write it down after Shabbos. They write it down. They make sure that, you know, and, and get it right, so they have the sifra, you know, whatever, whatever the Rebbe taught. But he had it all up here. The guy, the guy was phenomenal. I mean, the, no, forget about the, the, the potential that you can call him a tzadik and all this. The guy had a mind that was way out of, out of sight. It was just unbelievable, and it's stuff that nobody does. E- the, the stuff that he was teaching and talking about wasn't stuff that people were doing. It wasn't something that he could open a book and say, "Okay, I'll do this today."

59:36 Speaker 2 Right.

59:36 Speaker 1 Okay? This is stuff that he was doing on his own.

59:38 Speaker 2 Original.

59:39 Speaker 1 Yeah. It w- G- G- My God. I mean, the Rebbe was just above and beyond.

59:51 Speaker 2 So you said, you said earlier that you could have switched to another yeshiva, and you didn't. What... Is, is that why?

59:57 Speaker 1 I don't know why. I mean, I was very comfortable there, and, and I had my sports.

1:00:02 Speaker 2 You had your sports. Okay, so, so let's talk a- let's talk about, um, Rabbi Shlomo Jacobson and this yeshiva. It was, you said it was in the women's section.

1:00:12 Speaker 1 That's where they, they place it, but it, they, we, it, it-

1:00:15 Speaker 2 How many of the, how many of you guys were there?

1:00:17 Speaker 1 I don't know. It started with, uh, six or eight, and it got to be 20 or more, and, and then when I left, I got married, I had to go to work.

1:00:23 Speaker 2 So you were there for, what, 10 years almost?

1:00:25 Speaker 1 Not, not up there. Up there it was about a year and a half.

1:00:29 Speaker 2 Okay. So you were in-

1:00:30 Speaker 1 Yeah, but-

1:00:30 Speaker 2 You were in Medford Avenue from about 10 years old to when you were about 18, let's say?

1:00:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. So that was there eight years or so, right?

1:00:36 Speaker 2 And then you were another year-

1:00:37 Speaker 1 Another year, year and a half, two years, maybe.