9 of Adar 1, 1940 - America is Not Different: The Arrival of the Previous Rebbe

00:00 Speaker 1 Ninth day, you make Chabad for the ninth day of the second day of Adar, Adar Sheni. This is in the year Tof Shin, which is, uh, nineteen forty. That's the day that the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe came to the shores of the United States, and at that same very day, he founded the Yeshiva of Tomchei Tmimim. That's the Lubavitch Yeshiva in the United States. It's March nineteen, nineteen forty. That's actually when the major change took place in the, uh, shores of the United States because the Rebbe landed over here, and the Rebbe changed the landscape of- The Rebbe. That's the previous Rebbe. That's his father-in-law. The, the Rebbe, the, the previous Rebbe- Previous Rebbe ... was in, in Europe. He was in Russia, and then he was in Europe, and then he was, as we learned, he was-- he narrowly escaped, you know, the German, uh, when they, uh, were bombarding Warsaw, and then he escaped to Latvia, and then from Latvia, they c-- uh, went by boat. Now, they actually arrived on Monday, on the eighth day of Adar Sheni at six in the evening they arrived. But the, uh... it took him twelve days to travel on the boat, and, uh, the boat, um, actually anchored at that time. But the law was that any boat that came to the, uh, shore after four o'clock were not permitted to the, uh, part to- Disembark ... disembark until the next morning. So he was here technically on the four-- on the eighth, but he actually

01:38 Speaker 1 ended up coming out on the ninth day. That's when he was allowed to, to, to go. Now, the thing is that that, uh, day basically changed the United States forever. And the United States being sort of the, uh, leading country changed the whole world forever because everybody else follow, follow the United States. Now, you know, there was a lot of Jews already in the United States, and the United States was the melting pot. It was also the Golden Medina, as they used to call it, the Golden Country. And people who were persecuted all their lives and had hardships finally found the opportunity to be able to, uh, work and earn money and live like a mensch, as they say. However, it also took a terrible toll on the Yiddish kite. People who came from Europe, very religious, but when they came here- Assimilated ... had to assimilate. Well, if they wanted to survive, they needed to, or so they thought, that they needed to work on Shabbos. They needed to, uh, do things in order just to maintain their, uh, existence. They also, by and large, wanted their children to have an easier life than they themselves experienced. So they wanted to, in the melting pot, give them an education so that they would have, uh, other opportunities which they themselves did not have. However, that turned out to be very devastating to the Jewish religion. Maybe the physical standing of the Jew became better, but the spiritual standing of the Jew- Rose ... and

03:21 Speaker 1 what the Germans were trying to do is to annihilate us physically. Uh, we would have self-destructed if we continued in that path of, uh, apathy and not, uh, you know, taking an interest in Yiddish kite to, uh, persevere and to continue the, the Jewish people, you know, Chas v'shalom. As you know, you see to even today, there are certain studies that we heard about that come out that say that, you know, uh, the rates that things are growing, the intermarriage and the eleven- Won't be any Jews left ... won't be any Jews left, and you know, that was-- and at that time, the Rebbe came to the United States. Now, the Rebbe was a, a rabbi from Poland, and the people thought that, you know, he has very good intentions, and he has, you know, a lot of energy, and he's very dedicated, and he has great, uh, powers, and he's a holy man. But guess what? Not in this country. He didn't fit in. He did-- not only did he fit in, but he says the work that you did over there, uh, was, uh, not something that you're gonna accomplish over here. People who loved the Rebbe, who really respected the Rebbe, came to the Rebbe's room and as the Rebbe-- and the Rebbe came here. They came, and they were pleading with the Rebbe. They were telling me, "We don't-- w- don't get us wrong," they said. "We want you to be successful. We believe in your mission. We are all for

04:51 Speaker 1 it. But we don't want you to be utterly disappointed because this isn't Europe. This is America, and America is a different story. You cannot-- the things that worked in Europe do not work in America. It's not, it's not gonna work. So just know what's ahead of you so that later on you won't, you know, be disappointed." Disappointed, yeah. And the Rebbe later on in his journal, in his diary, he writes how much he cried and how much it pained him from what they said. But this, the Reb- the Rebbe came here, but we know that that's not what actually happened. Let's, let's read a little further over here. On Tuesday, which was already the ninth of the second day of Adar, thousands of people came to greet the Rebbe, the previous Rebbe. Previous Rebbe. And as the Rebbe appeared, uh, while he was exiting the boat, the entire crowd started to sing Shalom Aleichem, yelling Shalom Aleichem, and many also made the blessing of Shehecheyanu. That's when you have a joyful thing happen to you. They were very excited. And there were delegations from all different Jewish agencies that came to greet the Rebbe. Also, the mayor sent a special, uh-

06:12 Speaker 2 Fiorillo

06:12 Speaker 1 ... representative to... Who was the mayor then?

06:15 Speaker 2 Fiorello La Guardia. Did you know his mother was Jewish?

06:19 Speaker 1 No. Really?

06:20 Speaker 2 Did you know he spoke Yiddish fluently?

06:22 Speaker 1 Oh, really?

06:22 Speaker 2 And when he spoke on the radio to, to, in New York, he was speaking Yiddish to the Jewish people so-

06:28 Speaker 1 La Guardia?

06:29 Speaker 2 Yeah.

06:30 Speaker 1 He ought to go on Jeopardy!

06:31 Speaker 2 No. I watch it, and some of the categories they have is incredible.

06:35 Speaker 1 Well, but you know a lot of, you know a lot of facts.

06:37 Speaker 2 Yeah.

06:37 Speaker 1 Okay. And now he's gonna make-- Now he knows the facts for Chabad, so now pretty good.

06:43 Speaker 2 Now the Chabad

06:44 Speaker 1 He added, he added, he added, uh, uh, how many, uh, how many Chabad Rebbes married their cousins?

06:52 Speaker 2 Every one of them.

06:53 Speaker 1 Ah.

06:56 Speaker 2 Okay, don't forget, when he came, he was really the only Rebbe in America at that time.

07:01 Speaker 1 Well, no, there was Reform- There were, there was- There was Reform, right

07:03 Speaker 2 There weren't that many-

07:04 Speaker 1 Yeah

07:04 Speaker 2 ... because most of the other ones came after the war.

07:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. There were some Reform.

07:08 Speaker 3 A lot of Reform.

07:08 Speaker 2 I'm talking about Rebbes.

07:09 Speaker 1 Talking about Rebbes. Oh, Rebbes, Rebbes. Yeah.

07:10 Speaker 2 I'll go with rabbis.

07:11 Speaker 1 Oh, rabbis. Okay. After a short, uh, Kabbalat Shabbat, which they greeted the Rebbe at the, um, uh, by the dock. So the previous Rebbe went, and he stayed, in the beginning, in the, uh, Greystone Hotel in Manhattan. That was the place where he stayed when he first came. And when there was the, uh... had a special get-together to greet the Rebbe. So the Rebbe said the following words. These were the first words that the Rebbe said in this country. The Rebbe says, "Well, we have to open up with a blessing. I thank Hashem for saving us and taking us out from, uh, oppression, from, uh, difficulty to, uh, comfortable to this place. But I... it pains me terribly to disrupt the great j-joy of all the hearts of all those people that are here, and also my own personal joy. But my pain of my brothers and my sisters who are, uh, being tortured without mercy does not give me any peace." The Rebbe is still in Europe. In Europe, yes. "Their yellings and their screaming of our brothers and our sisters, especially of the many students of the different yeshivas and the Polish yeshivas, that goes with me, that goes along with me where ev-every place and every moment, and I cannot find any peace, any relaxation till Hashem will help and will also protect them as well." He must have been in such culture shock too. But he changed. What, what, what happens is- In ... as we learn in one of the

08:55 Speaker 1 Iomim- A kosher restaurant, I don't think he's ever heard of that, you know? Well, that wasn't his first priority anyways. No. No, but- A kosher restaurant ... culture shock, you know, it's like-

09:04 Speaker 2 No, like, I'm just saying that, you know, that whole-

09:07 Speaker 1 Well, he came from Warsaw. Warsaw was, was a little more advanced than the shtetls of Eastern Europe

09:13 Speaker 2 No, but I'm just saying just culture shock.

09:16 Speaker 1 But, but you see, the Rebbe writes in Iomim Yom, just one of the... just a couple of days ago. The Rebbe says that to, uh, sigh and say, "Oh, how bad it is," that doesn't do any good. He says a sigh is only like the handle of the lock, you know, but y-you have to do something about it. You can't- Right ... just complain, and you can't just say how terrible, how bad, and that's it, and then-

09:43 Speaker 2 It doesn't accomplish anything

09:43 Speaker 1 ... it doesn't accomplish anything. Right.

09:45 Speaker 2 Exactly.

09:45 Speaker 1 And, you know, and that's... As we were saying, the Rebbe, with all the emotional, you know, t-troubles that he had- Baggage ... with all the baggage and with all the... I don't know if you'd call them baggage, but with all the tzoros that he went through, he didn't let those thing pull him down to stop and say, "Look, you know." We find even Moshe Rabbeinu, you see, Moshe Rabbeinu's fathers, when they had the tzoros with the Egyptians, they-- he went and he separated from his wife. He said, "What, are we gonna have children? So that what? So they should throw them into the Nile River?" So- Yeah ... people felt that... even Abraham felt that way and that, you know, we're, we, we can't be productive in such a environment in which they're killing our... killing us. And, and basically, they s-decided to abstain, and therefore not to have any, any relationships and, and just not do anything. But until Miriam told him, "No, no, that it's worse. Your advice is worse than his because, uh, he only decreed for the boys to throw into the Nile, but you're not letting even girls be born." But the point over here is- Is that in the parsha or- Last week's parsha Last week's parsha. Now, uh, i-in, in, in, in this, in this situation, you know, somebody who has suffered so much and he's come to freedom, one would say, "Well, okay, you know what?" And he sees what's going on. "Let me take a little

11:12 Speaker 1 break." Right. But what he did was, was unbelievable. He founded the yeshiva on that same day. Same day. And then, and then, actually, the next day was... He founded it that day, and the next day they started to learn in the yeshiva. All the yeshivas that you have were founded by the Rebbe shortly thereafter. The yeshiva in Boston, the yeshiva in Springfield, the yeshiva in Worcester, the yeshiva in, in, in, in Pittsburgh, the yeshiva-- all over and all over the-

11:39 Speaker 2 He traveled to all these cities too

11:41 Speaker 1 No, the Rebbe sent. He's-

11:42 Speaker 2 Oh

11:42 Speaker 1 ... traveled originally when he came here the previous time. He was-

11:45 Speaker 2 Okay

11:45 Speaker 1 ... he traveled around a little bit to find a, a spot. That was earlier. That was about 10 years before.

11:50 Speaker 2 Oh, okay.

11:50 Speaker 1 But at this point, he send his emissaries to run these yeshivas, and that was the, sort of the, uh, the basis, the foundation, and that was the source of, of energy that- Uh, uh, brought in all the other, uh, all the older students and all the, the future generations. And if we have Yiddishkay today, as we have today, we have the Chabad houses, we have it all over the world, but at that point, this was the, this was the, as they say, the, the, the mortar, the, the, the-

12:22 Speaker 4 The foundation

12:23 Speaker 1 ... the bricks and mortars of-

12:24 Speaker 4 Foundation

12:24 Speaker 1 ... of everything later on, the foundation of everything that took, that took place. And for a, a rabbi 60 years old, coming from-- He was 60 at the time.

12:36 Speaker 4 Right.

12:37 Speaker 1 Coming from all the tzorras that he went through.

12:39 Speaker 4 Through all that.

12:40 Speaker 1 To, to go ahead and motivate and, and I think that one of the biggest, I think, uh, surprises, and one can be surprised, is the fact that, you know, we, we, we all deal today with the issue of a generation gap. You know, we-- There was like a, a, a, an idea-- The prevailing idea is that the older people-

13:02 Speaker 4 Don't understand

13:02 Speaker 1 ... don't understand the younger people. The older, the people don't understand. They're like living in two different worlds, even though they're sharing the same home and the same planet and the same place.

13:11 Speaker 4 Ask my kids.

13:12 Speaker 1 Ask your kids.

13:13 Speaker 5 Well, it's like a thing on TV.

13:14 Speaker 1 We don't-

13:15 Speaker 5 There's an ad, the woman says, "The only way I can talk to my grandchild is I have to text them."

13:18 Speaker 1 I have to text.

13:19 Speaker 5 Right?

13:20 Speaker 1 Right.

13:20 Speaker 5 So there's your example.

13:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay. But that's-- But, you know, you have to text them, otherwise the old-fashioned way, you can't talk to them. If you don't know how to text, then you can't talk to them. But that's in a very, uh, uh, technical way. But we're talking about more, we don't talk the same language. There's different values and different things importance and different-

13:38 Speaker 4 Very different

13:39 Speaker 1 ... and different. So how does a rebbe not only motivate the older people to come to shul to daven, which they do, or they're used to, but how do you motivate the young people, the people who are growing up-

13:53 Speaker 4 Right

13:53 Speaker 1 ... on, you know, on hotdogs and, and, uh-

13:56 Speaker 4 Chinese food

13:57 Speaker 1 ... Chinese food. How do you make-- Uh, pizza, how do you moti-- Well, separate, not together.

14:02 Speaker 4 Yeah.

14:03 Speaker 1 Okay. Uh. But how, how do you motivate them? How do you get-- And the, the, the brilliance and the, uh, sense of truth, you know, because that goes beyond any of the, uh, limitations or any categories. And one of the, also the things of, of, of, of Chabad was, I think it was very important, is not to put labels on, on Jews, not to put labels on-

14:29 Speaker 4 Everybody counts. Everybody

14:29 Speaker 1 ... on age. Everybody is included.

14:32 Speaker 4 Right.

14:32 Speaker 1 Don't label anybody, and don't-- In other words, so we're all in together.

14:36 Speaker 5 Let's say-

14:36 Speaker 1 Old, young, religious, uh, practicing, not practicing, we're all-

14:41 Speaker 4 Well, that's Chabad.

14:42 Speaker 5 That's Chabad, yeah.

14:43 Speaker 1 That's Chabad.

14:43 Speaker 5 But which makes them unique in comparison to the other ones.

14:45 Speaker 1 That's why.

14:45 Speaker 5 You're not-- If y- t- to most of-

14:46 Speaker 4 Anyone can come here.

14:48 Speaker 5 Right. But if you went into a different dynasty type of rebbe, they would o-ostracize you. They wouldn't even deal with you-

14:54 Speaker 4 No, no, no

14:54 Speaker 5 ... because you're not one of them.

14:55 Speaker 1 Some-sometimes, yeah. But you know, people I think are starting to realize-

14:59 Speaker 4 We're all, everyone is-

14:59 Speaker 1 Everybody, you know, I mean, spirited. I mean, people are starting to realize the, the benefit, and they're also realizing that the approach of the rebbe and the previous rebbe was the right approach in the sense that, um, we have to, um, we have to reach out. And people-

15:19 Speaker 4 Is that how we appeal to young people?

15:21 Speaker 1 People don't un-- Pe-people-- This appeal, w- also the same way is because we don't label. It's not about we, we talk. It's the eternal message of the Torah, which goes beyond everything. And the rebbe empowered, uh, everybody that they can do something, that they are not only a recipient. We-- I find like this, you know, when you have a child or you have somebody who has a difficulty learning, and they have a hard time, the best way to help them is actually, and to motivate them, is to make them for teachers. So if you take somebody and you tell him that you have a job, that you have to teach somebody else something-

16:07 Speaker 4 Right. Right. Right

16:08 Speaker 1 ... then you give them the level of responsibility, and then they know that they must actually study themselves, and they must give it over. And the rebbe's, I think brilliant idea, he took his own Hasidim. You could imagine if the rebbe-- I mean, it's just my own silly thoughts. I'm not sure if it's any validity, but that's just something that I was thinking about. The rebbe took his Hasidim, right? Now, what, what would they be, let's say, if the rebbe didn't send them out to the Chabad houses and everywhere and, you know, to do-- be in leadership positions to teach Yiddishkay, to, uh, motivate people in, in various different things, whether Yiddishkay or in just outreach work or good, uh, benevolent, you know, activities. You know, there's, there's drug rehabilitation, there is, uh, you know, helping people financially in, in various different, uh, ways. What would have happened if we would have, if we would have been like the ordinary, you know, the regular other Hasidim and, or other religious people?

17:16 Speaker 4 Stay in the-

17:16 Speaker 1 We would stay in the community. Now, you know, so some would, some would, some would continue to study, some would, uh, go to work, some would get businesses, and... But what the rebbe did, not only to benefit the people, he took and he, he made each and every one into a leader. So what happens is, A, the whole community is not just a person living in his own world, but he's out there teaching other people, disseminating. That's number one. But number two, he saved that teacher himself also because that person would not be a teacher otherwise. He'd probably be working on some computers for some, for some programmer or something working. But now-

17:56 Speaker 4 Teaching

17:57 Speaker 1 ... they have no choice. So if he's teaching, he has to prepare what he's teaching, and he has to give it over. He has to spend time, or she has to spend time, the same thing. So the point over here is The previous Rebbe and the Rebbe, they made everyone into a leader. And this, this guy said it best. You know, he was searching the various different kinds of, of, of Rebbes. He was-- I think it was this, uh, Jonathan Sacks said this. He used to be the-

18:24 Speaker 4 Oh, the, uh, the chief rabbi.

18:25 Speaker 1 So chief rabbi from England. He used to be the previous chief rabbi. He said when he was a student, he went around to interview-- or he was doing his, I guess his, his graduate studies over there on something about the religion. So he was interviewing various different, uh, leaders, and he came to the United States, and he had various different meetings. And, um, he says most of the... So I heard in his name, I'm not sure if I heard it from him or if I heard in his, uh, his story. So most of the-- He says, "Everywhere I went, all the Rebbes, they were nice, polite, they were smart, and everything else." He said, "Each one tried to recruit me to become their follower. That, you know, they wanted to bring me in and make me into a follower." He says-- But he says, "When I came to the Rebbe, he was the only one." He said, "He made me into a leader." He says, "I have enough followers. No, no. Don't become my followers. Go do something for Yiddishkeit." He says, "This is, this is the, the, the brilliance. This is the, the, the, the, the real sense. It's not, it's not me. It's not to increase my, uh, my sphere of influence, but to bring in oth-others and make them into leaders, and they can go out." What?

19:34 Speaker 4 You know that what's the difference between a, a good leader and a great leader is a great leader makes leaders.

19:42 Speaker 1 Makes leaders. And that's what the Rebbe did, made leaders. But when you make a leader, you're not only helping the community where she leads, but you're helping that leader himself because you made him into a leader.

19:52 Speaker 4 Right.

19:52 Speaker 1 There was a story about the Alter Rebbe, um, when he was going on his way to the Maggid of Mezritch, and he, uh, stopped by, uh, one of the great, uh, Hasidic masters, and he was trying to entice the Rebbe, uh, by... The Alter Rebbe passed by him. He wanted to keep the Alter Rebbe as his follower. And, uh, he, he told him that, "I'll teach you the talk of the birds and the animals. You'll be -"

20:21 Speaker 4 Able to understand them.

20:22 Speaker 1 "You'll be able to understand them." So he said that, "You know what? That's all, that's all, that's all nice, that's all nice and good, but still, I'm going to my Rebbe. I'm going to the Alter Rebbe." So today's also-- it's, uh, Havdalah is the Yahrzeit of the Alter Rebbe, so it's, uh, uh, something to, um, to, to reflect upon. Um, this is the, um, this is the, I guess, the core where it started when it started with the ninth day of Adar Alef in that year.

20:51 Speaker 4 Yeah.

20:51 Speaker 1 And I think the other, I think, message is, I think, which is we need to put it through our heads. There is nothing that you can't accomplish if you really are dedicated and you put yourself to it. If you put yourself to it, you think, you know, "How could one sixty-year-old Hasidic Rebbe of Poland change all Judaism in this country?" But you could. So he showed us. He showed us that with determination, with Mesirus Nefesh, you could. With self-sacrifice, you could. He taught us that-- He taught us that we shouldn't think... I mean, we're not the Rebbe, and we don't have his powers, of course. But still, everybody in their own scale, we can do a lot more-

21:34 Speaker 4 Oh, yeah

21:34 Speaker 1 ... than we, than we, than we think. And certainly it's true with Yiddishkeit too. You know, a lot of people think they're limited because, "Look, I didn't get the education. Uh, I, I didn't grow up in such a home. So, you know, uh, I can only, you know, there's only-- I, I only expect of myself a certain amount, and that's all what I can do because, look, that's just the reality." But the truth is that if you put yourself, you'd be surprised that, you know, you can actually achieve and become, uh, knowledgeable, become, uh, learned, become, and become a teacher yourself into, into helping others, uh, you know, achieve greatness. So that's-- I think that's the important message.