1314 - Elul 14 – Chabad history

00:00 Speaker 1 Do you make Chabad for the 14th day of Elul? We have several, um, several things to mention for the 14th day of Elul, and some of them are sad and, um, some of them are, are positive. But, uh, it's also-- First of all, it's the yurt site in the order of, uh, of events. It's yurt site in the year Taf Reish Yud Beis. Again, uh, we're Taf Shin Ayin Gimel, so this puts it, like, hundred and, uh, sixty years back. Um, so that was the, uh, day of passing of the great, uh, genius and a Hasid. He was kn- he was known as the Baruch Babrusk. Babrusk is a city. He was the, uh, he was the rabbi of that city. Uh, his full name was the Baruch Mordechai Oettinger of Babrusk. Of the Baruch Mordechai of Babrusk is what he's known of the city of Babrusk. Um, he was one of the great, uh, students, um, of the Alter Rebbe, uh, of Roshney Zalman. And there is a long story how he became attracted, uh, to the Alter Rebbe. And, um, so there's a long detailed story how he became attached and became close to the Alter Rebbe. Uh, after the passing of the Alter Rebbe, he was also one of the special Hasidim, the great Hasidim of the Mitteler Rebbe, which was the-- took over his father's place. And then eventually, after the passing of the Mitteler Rebbe, he was of the elder Hasidim of the Tsamach Tzedek. That was the third Lubavitcher

01:50 Speaker 1 Rebbe. So he spanned all the three Rebbes. And for fifty years, he served as the rabbi of the city of Babrusk. Uh, also the opponents, the Misnagdim of Babrusk, accepted him as their rabbi, and they all had the greatest deal of respect for him. Is he the one that, that's went up to Lithuania and negotiated a little with them? Or those- Mm-hmm. They tried to work out their problems? No. No. Not that I know. No. Okay. No. But that's, that's, that's, that's, that's another one. Now- Okay ... uh, he says that one of the, one of the rabbis describes him as being a very, um, special, very intelligent, and he was just also-- he was-- had a very way about him to, uh, draw people, uh, people's hearts, and he would, uh, like a magnet, uh, to him. You know. His love for Torah, his fear of heaven, and even when he would just talk ordinary talk, it was very wise, and people would appreciate much his-- the way he would express and the way he would say, very sharp and a very, very pleasant... It was a very special person. After the Alter Rebbe passed away, he became totally connected to the Mitteler Rebbe, and then to the Tsamach Tzedek. In the year Taf Reish Yud Alef, that was one year before he passed, he went up to Eretz Yisrael, and he settled in Yerushalayim. Um, and he was there about a year in, in Israel, and then he passed away, and he's buried

03:35 Speaker 1 on the Har HaZeisim, on the, on the Mount of Olives. And, uh, his interment is next to the Holy Or HaChaim. Uh, he was like a very humble man. You can imagine somebody with such great qualifications, such great knowledge, such intelligence, but yet he was very humble. And there's a anecdote that is, uh, um, goes around. His home was, you know, like in those homes in those days were like, uh, uh, secondary. They weren't paved well, they weren't... So there was always like a, uh, little puddle of water in front of his house. There was like, uh, the drain system didn't work well over there. And they would ask him, "Why is there always, uh, a puddle in front of your house?" You know, they asked him. So he would say that, uh, our sages tell us that, uh, Hashem showed the first man, Adam HaRishon, he showed him in the vision all the generation to follow. He showed all the preachers, he showed the rabbis that are going to follow, and different sages. So he says, when HaKadosh Baruch showed Adam HaRishon the first man, he showed him Baruch Mordechai is gonna be the Rav of the city of Babrusk. So Adam HaRishon gave a spit, and he said, "Feh, feh. This is a rabbi?" He says. "This is a..." He said, "From that spit, there is the eternal puddle that is over here," which is, which is his house. That was the expression that he said. They were great philosophers. Um, now a

05:25 Speaker 1 little bit, uh, moving ahead to the fourteenth day of Elul of Taf Reish Tsadi Gimel. So this is already in nineteen thirty-three. This is in nineteen thirty-three. Uh, this is the day, on the fourteenth day of Elul, in which the previous Rebbe settled in Warsaw, in Poland. Immediately in nineteen twenty-eight, after the previous Rebbe left Russia, miraculously, as we've gone through many times- Immediately he's, he settled in the city of Riga in Latvia. He settled over there, and he lived from 1928 till 1933, he lived in Riga, and then he went over to Warsaw. Now, Warsaw was a very big Jewish city before the war. It was like sprawling with Hasidic courts with lots and lots of Hasidim. And that, that, that he went on... He, he moved on the fourteenth day of Elul because there is a letter that the previous Rebbe writes to the Rebbe, to his son-in-law, to the Rebbe, in which he tells him that, um, and this is that he's, uh, for this is on the eve of Elul, that they're traveling towards, uh, towards Warsaw, and, uh, they actually came to Warsaw, as we said before, on the fourteenth day of Elul. Eventually, he only lived for two years. They lived in Warsaw until the summer of Taf Resh Tzadik Hey, that's nineteen thirty-five, then he moved to the city of Otwock. So basically, it was Leningrad, then Riga in Latvia, and then, uh, Warsaw, and then eventually to Otwock. And then, of course, eventually, they came to the

07:34 Speaker 1 United States, um, to move to the United States in, in nineteen forty, they moved to the United States. Um, another unfortunate event to mem- we commemorate in the fourteenth day of Elul, and that is the, uh, day that the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Horenstein, which we'll explain in a minute. She was the daughter of the Rebbe Maharash. Uh, she was gassed in Treblinka. She was gassed at that date. Um, uh, the Rebbe at many, uh, some occasions has said that people question about the, um, about the Holocaust, about, uh, about Hashem, uh, and where was God, it seemed like that, and how could you keep the faith, and all these kind of questions. But the Rebbe said at those occasions that he personally lost many members of his immediate families to the Holocaust. So he, more than others, is aware of the horrors, and they have affected him personally on a personal level. So he's no stranger to what's going, going-- what, what went on over there. So this is... We're talking about the, uh, youngest daughter of the, uh, Rebbe Maharash. Now how do we know this specific detail that the day she passed away, the day that they took her, they gassed her, how do we know about that? So he says the Rebbe writes, this is the Rebbe writes it on one of the, uh, memoriam of the, um, of the previous Rebbe. The Rebbe writes over there that he received a letter from this person named Mordechai Unrad. Uh, he was also

09:22 Speaker 1 in Treblinka. He was in that same camp, and he was there in the year, in the Taf Shin Beis, which was nineteen forty-two. And they were in the same barrack over there together with my brother-in-law, uh, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hacohen, which unfortunately they were gassed too. The previous Rebbe had three daughters, okay? The Rebbe was married to the daughter Chaya Mushka. That was the, uh, wife of the Rebbe. She was the middle daughter of the previous Rebbe. There was an older daughter whose name was Chana. Rebbetzin Chana was the older daughter. Uh, she was married to a fellow named Rabbi Gurary, which was the Rebbe's brother-in-law, and they were both in, uh, in Brooklyn while the Rebbe was the Rebbe, became the Rebbe. Uh, Rabbi Gurary was the head of the Lubavitch Yeshivas. He was the head administrator over there. Uh, and, you know, I don't know if you heard, there was... After a while, there came a problem with the, some of the books, who do they belong to. That was his brother-in-law's son, um, named Barry, who, who, who, who challenged. But that's another story. Here- Where, where were they living with- So- At this time? Before the, before This was all, so this- In Warsaw? This-- They were in Poland, in Warsaw. They were all in Poland. They were all in Poland. The family was. Yes, the whole family was there. When the previous Rebbe left, uh, left Russia, he took along the whole family with him. And then they got married,

10:56 Speaker 1 but his youngest daughter was married to Harav Menachem Mendel Hacohen, uh, Horenstein. That was the, um... So his brother-in-law is relating to this man about what happened. This Menachem Mendel Hacohen, which was the Rebbe's brother-in-law, who unfortunately perished also in by the, by the Germans . So he, he is telling this to this fellow, to Mordechai Unrad, who relates it to the Rebbe, who the Rebbe's quoting his letter. He told me that in another barrack there are the two women, which is his mother. That's his mother, that's the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka we were talking about her yahrtzeit, Chaya Mushka Horenstein, and, um, also his wife, uh, the Rebbetzin Shayna. Shayna is, of course, the daughter of the previous Rebbe. And, um, so Shayna together with Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hacohen, his mother Uh, because he was a Horenstein. The Rebbe's brother-in-law was a Horenstein, who was, uh, the son of, um, of the Rebbe Salai Mushka, which was the daughter of the Rebbe Maharas. And, um, on the 15th day of Elul in Toshan Beis, uh, the, uh, Kapo, that was the, uh, Jewish, uh, police over there-

12:27 Speaker 2 Police, yeah

12:27 Speaker 1 ... um-

12:28 Speaker 2 European Jewish police

12:29 Speaker 1 ... Jew, yeah. So they, uh, brought him a note to Rebbe Nachman Mendel from his wife, which is the Rebbetsin Shayna, that said that on the 14th day of Elul, his mother, which was, uh, Nachman Mendel, like Cohen's mother, the Rebbe's brother-in-law's mother, was taken to, to the gas chambers. And this is unfortunately, you know, the, um, the sad history. You know, many times not only is there no remains, but many times we don't even know when these people perished. You know, we don't even have-

13:01 Speaker 2 Exactly

13:02 Speaker 1 ... uh, dates of, we don't have even dates. In this case, you know, you have a date. And you know, a lot of times what they do when there is an absent of knowledge when a person passed away, they just set some day for the Yahrtzeit, and that becomes the Yahrtzeit when you say Kaddish for them and-

13:17 Speaker 2 Yeah

13:17 Speaker 1 ... things like that because you don't even, uh, you don't even know, you know, when to say Kaddish. You don't even know when to say... Yeah?

13:24 Speaker 2 'Cause Rebbe came to America, they left the whole family there.

13:28 Speaker 1 Mm, the-

13:29 Speaker 2 Right? He came here in 1940.

13:31 Speaker 1 Um, yeah. So at that time, they barely... Yeah, some of the family were, they were scattered at the time already because once the Germans came in, uh, they were already in. The Germans was there already.

13:44 Speaker 2 September, September 9th.

13:46 Speaker 1 The Germans were in there already.

13:47 Speaker 2 They came in and invaded Poland.

13:48 Speaker 1 I'm not-- Yeah. I'm not sure exactly-

13:51 Speaker 2 Because 15-

13:51 Speaker 1 Not sure exactly where each one of these family members were at the time. We know that the Rebbe was, uh, in, in France at the time. He was first in Berlin, but then he was in France.

14:03 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. That's, that's right.

14:03 Speaker 1 That the Rebbe was. But with his brother-in-law, where, uh, the Rashag, the Rebbe's-- The other son-in-law of the Rebbe was together with the Rebbe. When the Rebbe was extracted from, from Warsaw, he went back. He wa- he lived in Otwock, but then during the war, they went back to Warsaw, and then they lived in Warsaw. They didn't live there. They were hiding out in Warsaw and-

14:25 Speaker 2 Because he came to America after the Germans invaded Poland.

14:29 Speaker 1 Yes.

14:29 Speaker 2 That's right.

14:29 Speaker 1 He came after they invaded Poland.

14:31 Speaker 2 And they invaded Poland September 1st, 1939.

14:35 Speaker 1 And what happened was over there also, this was a miraculous story. They have today a whole book written up about it. It'd be ve- very interesting to-

14:41 Speaker 2 Yeah

14:41 Speaker 1 ... to read that, that, that history. But it was like miraculous. They had the German soldiers, not Nazis, but I think the Germans themselves, some people on the high things that were helping, they were s- letting the Rebbe through. And uh, they, they traveled at, at, at nighttime with a whole caravan and with a walk. And they, they had to go through... I mean, I read it, but I don't remember now the details.

15:07 Speaker 2 Yeah.

15:07 Speaker 1 Uh, so it was, uh, very, very, very challenging.

15:10 Speaker 2 For a huge ransom.

15:11 Speaker 1 What?

15:12 Speaker 2 There was a huge ransom to pay.

15:14 Speaker 1 Yeah. And you know, miraculously-

15:16 Speaker 2 There was nothing for nothing

15:16 Speaker 1 ... yeah, miraculously, they were saved over there. And then-

15:19 Speaker 2 Yeah, okay

15:19 Speaker 1 ... and then as you know, later on, eventually they miraculously also saved the Rebbe's life, you know, the Rebbe, uh, from France. But apparently-

15:26 Speaker 2 But that was-

15:27 Speaker 1 ... uh, with, uh, the Rebbetsin Shayna, there was nothing that they can do at the time.

15:30 Speaker 2 Yeah.

15:30 Speaker 1 I'm not sure exactly. They were taken or whatever. I'm not sure exactly where they were.

15:35 Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, this is a different situation.

15:35 Speaker 1 We have to look in the, in the, I mean, um-

15:38 Speaker 2 Because the Fr- in the Fr- in the France was mu- was later for the invasion, and it was Vichy France.

15:43 Speaker 1 The Vichy, man, the Vichy regime.

15:44 Speaker 2 Vichy France is like whenever y- they would take a payoff, and it was very corrupt.

15:49 Speaker 1 But they, but what happened was that they moved to Southern France, which was a little bit-

15:53 Speaker 2 That was Vichy

15:54 Speaker 1 ... yeah.

15:54 Speaker 2 The Vichy government.

15:55 Speaker 1 And they would-- Yeah. So they w- they, they moved to Southern France to-

15:58 Speaker 2 So it was easier

15:59 Speaker 1 ... to other places that, you know.

16:00 Speaker 2 It was easier to, to move them, yeah.