218. The Mystery Letter

00:15 Shalom aleichem, kindalech. It's after Yontev, great yamim tovim, sukkot, simchas torah, and Shabbos Bereshit. I wanna share with you a, an amazing story that happened with the Rebbe, our Rebbe. The story was written up by a younger man, a Chasid in Eretz Yisrael who heard it from the person himself. An, an incredible story. There's a Jew who lived in Eretz Yisrael. He's a Chasid, not a Chabad Chasid. In fact, he had very little to do with Chabad, with Lubavitch. He was a, a Chasid, um, maybe Satmar, maybe Munkatch, different Hasidis. He lived in Eretz Yisrael, and he was working for an organization. And one day he was going to visit his wife's family together with his wife in New York, in Williamsburg. His wife was from Williamsburg, maybe a Satmar family, and they were going to visit the family. His wife went straight to New York, but he had to stop over in Paris, in France, for a few days to take care of some business. 'Cause he worked for an organization, he was supposed to take care of a few things. While he was in Paris, he went into a hotel because he had to stay overnight, so he stayed in a hotel in the city of Paris. It was late at night. He couldn't sleep. He decided to go outside the hotel and take a little walk. So he walks in the streets of Paris, and he sees it's like late at night, like after midnight. There's a café. A café is like,

02:31 um, like a little restaurant where people drink coffee and eat food and talk. And a lot of people in that ca-café. And he sees in one corner there is an elderly man, very nicely dressed, and he has hair down all the way to his shoulders. And there are a large group of s- of young people listening to him, like they're students of his, and he's talking to them and they all are listening very carefully, and some of the students are writing down everything he says 'cause they wanna make sure they remember everything he's teaching them. It was, it was very... And the man looked very interesting. He looked like a, somebody very smart. So he just looked for a few minutes to see what's going on there. What, what is he teaching them something? So then he went back to the hotel and went back to sleep. The next night again, he can't sleep late at night. Very unusual. Usually, he sleeps well at night, but for some reason he couldn't sleep that night. Went again outside, walked in the streets, and walked past this café, and again he sees the same man, this elderly man who is, uh, looks like a professor or like some teacher, and he's talking to his students, and there are a lot of young people listening to every word that he says. It seems like he's a very respected teacher, so everybody's, like, listening to everything, and they're taking notes. They're writing down everything he says. And he's just

04:16 looked at, he was, he was like interested in what's going on there. Suddenly, this elderly man, this professor, looked around and sees this Chasid from Eretz Yisrael looking at him. So he looked back at him. He looked at the Chasid. And when he saw him, he walked right over to him, walked outside the café into the street and walked over to this Chasid, and he says, "Shalom aleichem. Vos macht a Yid?" In Yiddish. He starts speaking to him in Yiddish. This Chasid was very surprised. He, he thought he was a goy. He, he's a Yid that speaks Yiddish. Like he came from a very, very Hasidisha family. He speaks like a Yiddish, like they spoke in Poland. And the elderly man says to him, "Where are you from?" In Yiddish. They speak in Yiddish. He tells ma-- He tells the, the, this, this Chasid says, "I'm on my way to New York City, but I thought I had to drop off here for two days, but I'm flying already tomorrow to New York." Says this elderly man, um, that he is actually a professor in a big famous university in Paris. It's called Sorbonne. Very famous place. And he's a, he's a professor. And many of these young people that are listening to him, these are his students. Then he said to him, "I'd like to share something with you, but I'd like you to come to my house. I have a very beautiful, beautiful house, apartment in one of the most expensive neighborhoods of

06:02 Paris. Please come with me. I wanna show you something." I also want to share with you something. And he takes him and this Hasid said, "Okay." So they go in the-- they drive to, to his house. They go into the house, is this like a big, big living room with a lot of books in the bookcases, all Graischer books. And this old professor says to him, "Don't look at this. We're gonna go to the next living-- I have another living room, and there you'll see on the bookcases..." There's also bookcases there, a whole library, and the whole library is full of Seforim. Seforim of great tzadikim, from Noam Elimelech, from Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk, the Sefer Kedushas Levi from Reb Levi Isaac of Berditchev, the Tanya from the Alter Rebbe. The whole room is full with holy Seforim, heilige Seforim. And he says to this Hasid, "Let's sit down. I wanna talk to you." This Hasid's getting very anxious. What, what does he want to tell him? And the older man says, "Listen, I was born in Poland in a family of a very famous Rebbe, a Hasidishe Rebbe in Poland." And then there was the Holocaust. You remember the war, the Germans took over Poland, and they killed six million Jews. And he, this professor, was in concentration camps. He was in terrible-- He went through a lot of, a lot of terrible things, and he saw many members of his family that were killed. He says, he says, "After the war, I was

07:50 angry with Hashem. Why did Hashem do this? I believe in Him. I believe that Hashem is there, but I'm angry with Him. How come He made the Jewish people suffer so much?" And then he tells this Hasid what his last name is. When the Hasid hears this, he starts shaking. He can't believe what he just heard. The name that he told him is the name of a very famous Rebbe. Before the war, there was a very famous tzadik, a Rebbe in Poland that had tens and thousands of Hasidim. He's known all over the world. He's the son of that Rebbe. Now, this professor tells him, "After the war, I came out of the camps and I decided I'm going to change the way I look. I'm gonna dress like Goyim. I'm gonna take off my yarmulke, cut off my payos and my beard, and I'll start studying in the university, and I will not tell my family that I'm alive. And I'll keep it a secret, and I'll live in France." And I became a professor, and I'm a very respected professor in the university. And my family, probably they all live in Israel. Many members of the family that survived, came out of the concentration camps and the Holocaust, they all live in Eretz Yisrael. Many of them are Rebbes. They became Rebbes. They took over. They became the big Rebbes of the-- of that, of that Hasidis. And he never told anyone that he's alive. They think, his family, his relatives in Eretz

09:46 Yisrael who are Hasidim, and many of them are Rebbes, they think that he is dead. He was killed by the Nazis, 'cause they never found him after the war, 'cause he changed the way he looked. He looks like n-now like, uh, now he doesn't look like a Jew. So nobody knows the secret that he's alive. And he says to this Hasid, "You're the first one to hear about it, and I want you to promise me right here, you promise you won't tell anyone who I am. I don't want you to tell my family members in Eretz Yisrael. I don't want anyone to know that you know where I am. I'm only telling it to you." And he says, "Give me your hand and let's shake our hands. This is like a promise." And this Hasid from, from Eretz Yisrael said okay. Then this professor tells him, "I have a favor to ask you." He said, "You're leaving tomorrow, but I'm gonna ask you a favor to push off your trip, that you shouldn't go to America, to New York, for another few days, because I need to do something, and you're gonna have to help me." He says, "What do you need to do?" He says, "I'll-- I wanna write a letter. It'll take me a few days to write it, and I want you to take that letter when you go to New York. You go to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He comes in every day to Seven seventy from his house. I want you

11:20 to give him this letter in his hands. Don't give it to his secretary, Rabbi Groner or Rabbi Klein or Rabbi Chodakov, and they should give it to the Rebbe. No. Uh, you can only give it to the Rebbe himself in his hands. So when he passes by, you stop him and say, 'This is a letter for you,' and that's it. I don't want anyone to take the letter and, and read the letter. Uh, uh, only the Rebbe should see it." So he said, "Go, I'll try." He said, "But why do you wanna send to the Lubavitcher Rebbe a letter? I mean, you come from Poland, so you probably knew a lot of the other Hasidim Rebbes, um, from Poland, and there's a lot of them in Eretz Yisrael and some in America. Why Lubavitch? Why the Rebbe, Lubavitcher Rebbe?" And he says, "Don't ask questions. This is what I want." He says, "The Lubavitcher Rebbe is, is a very, very great person, and I want him to get my letter. But make me promise that if you can't give it to him in his hands, to the Rebbe himself, then you're gonna send the letter back to me. I don't want you to give it to anyone else." He says, "Okay, I promise." And so a few days passed, and the man wrote the letter, the professor wrote the letter, sealed it so nobody can read it. He says, "Here, please take this now. When you come to New York, make sure that you go

12:43 to Seven seventy. When you see the Rebbe coming in, immediately give him the letter." So when he came to New York, the next day he went to sleep first, you know, he came from a long trip. The next morning, he goes to Seven seventy, and goes into the office where the Rebbe's secretaries are, and say to him-- He says to them, "I have a special mission. I have to give a letter to the Rebbe's hand. Can you tell me how I can give the Rebbe personally that letter?" And the Rebbe's secretary, Rabbi Groner says, "No, you can't do that. You have to give us the letter. We'll give it to the Rebbe. We won't read the letter, don't worry. But you can't give it directly to the Rebbe." This was-- This happened to be right after the Rebbe got very sick. Now, if you all know that in Tov Shin Lamed Ches, in middle of Shemini Atzeres, the Rebbe had a terrible, terrible heart attack. That means his heart got very sick, and it was a terrible time. I still remember it. I was there. And the Rebbe needed time to get stronger after he was so sick. So Rabbi Groner says, "You can't just bother the Rebbe by giving him letters, because the Rebbe can't be disturbed. He needs time for himself because he needs to rest up, so he can get better and stronger. But we will give him the letter." So this, uh, Hasid says to them, "I can't do this because

14:11 I promised the person that I will give it myself." They said, "Well, I'm sorry. Absolutely not. You cannot do this." So this Hasid who had the letter was a little bit disappointed because what is he gonna do now? So he thought he'll, he'll come back in a few days and tell again and try to convince the secretary to let him give the letter to the Rebbe. He tries again, and then again, and they say, "No, no, no. You cannot do this. Don't even try to give it to the Rebbe's hands. The Rebbe needs to be left alone because he needs to get stronger." Finally, he realizes, "Okay, I'll have to send the letter back to this professor and tell him I couldn't deliver it to the Rebbe's hands." Very disappointed, but what can he do? Rabbi Groner says he cannot go to the Rebbe, and he warned him he shouldn't even try it. Then it's the last day before he goes back to Eretz Yisrael. He didn't send the letter yet. He thought he was gonna send it from Eretz Yisrael. When he goes back to Eretz Yisrael, he goes back home. So the last day was Shiva Asar B'Tammuz. He was supposed to fly back the next day, so he thought the morning of Shiva Asar B'Tammuz, I think it was a Sunday, he thought, "You know what? Let me try one more time. I'll go to Seven seventy." He heard that the Rebbe davens Mincha, um, and Shiva Asar B'Tammuz downstairs in the

15:47 big shul. So he'll go daven Mincha. Maybe, I, I don't know, maybe something will happen. I'll be able to give the Rebbe the letter. He didn't know how because Rabbi Groner told him absolutely not. So he goes for davening. The Rebbe comes in, davens Mincha, and there's thousands of people davening with the Rebbe, and then after davening, the Rebbe goes out of the shul. As you know, the Rebbe goes from his place all the way in the front of the shul, right? And then he walks all the way to the back of the shul to go to the e-exit, to the door. He goes up the steps and goes to his room. And this Hasid, he had the letter in his pocket, and he stood amongst a lot of people to, you know, together with everybody together, waiting for the Rebbe to pass by to go outside the shul. Rabbi Groner, who was behind the Rebbe, saw this Hasid standing there, and he hinted with his hands from far, "Don't you dare go up to the Rebbe. Don't you dare try to do anything which I told you not to do." So he's not trying to do anything. He says, "Okay, no, no, don't worry about it. I'm just..." But something amazing started happening. What happened? The Rebbe is walking, and there's two sides, people standing on both sides, and the Rebbe's walking in the middle. And suddenly, the Rebbe stops and turns to his right where the people standing, and he looks. People are

17:21 wondering who the Rebbe's looking at. So they made a path so the Rebbe can see inside the crowd who is standing there. Nobody knows who he's looking at. Him, this person, that person, what does the Rebbe want? Finally, this Hasid realized the Rebbe's staring at him, and he doesn't know what to do. Suddenly, the Rebbe says to him, "Nu? Nu?" And he, he doesn't know what the Rebbe wants. Then he realized, "Oi vey. The Rebbe knows everything. He knows who I am." He realized that I can't approach him because Rabbi Groner told him not to. So the Rebbe wants that letter. So I reached in my pocket, took out the letter, gave it to the Rebbe's hand, and the Rebbe said, "A dank." Thank you. And he walked out of the shul. I was in such a shock. I couldn't believe my, my eyes. The Rebbe knew everything. I didn't-- So I, I went straight to the phone, and I, I called up this professor in France, he gave me his number, and I told him what just happened. I was already, uh, hopeless. I hope-- I, I, I thought I couldn't give the letter to the Rebbe. There was no chance for me to give. I was gonna send it back, but then this last day, the Rebbe stopped him and asked him for the letter. The Rebbe, Baruch HaKodesh, knew everything, that this guy ne- has a letter for the Rebbe. This professor was very happy. This Hasid went back to Eretz Yisrael,

19:07 went home, and every few weeks he calls this professor in Paris to see how he's doing. When he-- One time he called him, he said, "Nu, did the Rebbe answer your letter?" He says, "No, no, the Rebbe, the Rebbe called me from his house." Which is unusual. The Rebbe doesn't usually call from his house. The Rebbe calls-- tells the secretaries to call from his office. "The Rebbe called me from his house a few times, and we spoke." He didn't tell him what they spoke about. It seems that this professor wanted to do Teshuvah. He, he felt he wanted to do Teshuvah. He's getting old, and he knows that who knows how long he's gonna live, and he realized that for the last forty, fifty years, he was not doing the right thing. He was leading a life like a goy. He didn't keep Torah and mitzvahs, and he wanted to do Teshuvah before he dies. It seems that that was the, the request from the Rebbe, that the Rebbe should help him. Or we don't know. Nobody knows what happened. All we know is the Rebbe spoke to him, and the Rebbe knew all about him without him ever telling the Rebbe f- earlier. Then this, uh, Hasid who lived in Eretz Yisrael, uh, kept calling this professor from time to time. One time it was, uh, right, uh, before Yom Kippur. He calls up, and he wishes him a good Yom Tov. Then he tries to call him after Simchat Torah, and there's no

20:49 answer. So he calls and calls and calls, and the professor in Paris doesn't answer the phone. He got a little bit worried, so after a few weeks of trying, he called up the university where this professor was teaching. He thought he'll find him in an office. So he calls the university, says, "I need Professor so and so by this name. Can I talk to him?" They said, "Well, here's the office where he works." They give him the secretary of the office that she should answer the phone. And she asks him, "Why, why do you need to talk to the professor?" He said, "Because I'm a friend of his." So she said, "Well, he died." "When did he die?" She says the date. Turns out the date was Simchat Torah. On Simchat Torah, he had a heart attack and died. Uh, where was he buried? Where did they bury him? In a goyish cemetery. When he hears this, he almost fainted. Oy vey. This son of a great tzadik, a great Rebbe, and he wanted to do Teshuvah, and the Rebbe helped him, and now they bury him in a Christian, in a goyish cemetery? Oy vey, what can I do? Maybe I can change and, and take his body out and bury him in a Jewish cemetery. That's such a terrible thing. He doesn't know what to do. Um, he asks-- calls up the university, asks which cemetery, and, uh, they tell him. He doesn't know what to do. He goes, um... He goes and

22:34 sees in Eretz Yisrael a Rebbe, a Polisher Rebbe, Polisher Rebbe. He's known as the Amshinover Rebbe. He's still alive. A lot of people go to him. And the Amshinover Rebbe is a big Hasid of the Rebbe. He, he, he believes in the Rebbe, very close to the Rebbe. He goes to the Amshinover Rebbe, and he says to him the whole story. And he says, "I'm, I'm so broken that I can't help him. He's buried amongst the goyim." The Amshinover Rebbe says to him, "Don't you worry. If the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rebbe, knew about him without you telling him, the Rebbe knew everything, then I'm sure that the Rebbe knows what's happening with him, and that he died, and he's in a g-- and the Rebbe for sure will take care of him. You don't have to worry about it." After a few months, he calls up the university again, and he says, "I wanna go visit his grave in that cemetery." And they tell him from the university, actually, they had moved him out of that cemetery, and they moved him to a Jewish cemetery. When he heard this, he saw that the Amshinover Rebbe was right. No one in the entire world knew that secret of who he was, this professor, that he was actually the son of some very big Rebbe tzadik, and that, and that he died, and he-- Only he, this Hasid, and the Rebbe. So who was the one who moved his body out of the goyish cemetery? It's only

24:17 the Rebbe could have done it. The Rebbe probably called somebody in France, that they should make arrangement to move him the way he should be moved to a Jewish cemetery amongst Yidden, which is the, the proper thing to do. Now, this Hasid also died recently, so we will never find out the name of this professor, who his father really was. Apparently, his father is very famous. His father has also passed away before the war, but he was a son of this great tzadik, and all his family members live in Eretz Yisrael, and there are Rebbes and Hasidim and there-- And nobody even knows. They don't-- Nobody ever knew that he existed and that he was alive after the war. The only one that knew-- The two people in the whole world that knew, this Hasid and the Rebbe. Here we see that the Rebbe was involved in bringing Jewish neshamas back to the Torah, sometimes in ways that we will never know, and sometimes the Rebbe knowing from Ruach Hakodesh that there is a Jew who comes from a very, very famous Rebbe tzadik-- tzadikim family, and he has gone off very far away, eating on Yom Kippur, um, challah Shabbos, and then at the end of his life, he wanted to come back in the teshuva. And the Rebbe somehow knew about it, the Ruach Hakodesh, and the Rebbe did everything to help him, and then the Rebbe even saved him from being buried amongst Goyim.