11 Nissan- part 1: The Rebbe meets Reb Chaim Ozer & Reb Boruch Ber Lebowitz ZTL

00:01 The COVID Yud Aleph Nissan, the Yemai letters of the Rebbe. Rebbe was born in the year Taf Res Samach Beis 1902. We will relay a story which was told by Rab Yesef Krupnik, who was at the time of the interview, some 10 years ago or more, a kasrus administrator at the Detroit Council of Orthodox Rabbis. The story was published by JEM, Jewish Education Media, in a series of Here is My Story, the weekly story. Rab Krupnik relates the following. In 1966, I was learning on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the Yeshiva Yankev Yesef, famously known throughout the world as RJJ. At the time, I had a study partner by the name Alexander Stern, who had a connection with Chabad, and he was constantly inviting me to see what a fabrengen with the Rebbe was like. Finally, I accepted his invitation for Yud Shvat. Yud Shvat, the 10th of the Hebrew month of Shvat, is a most significant day on the Chabad calendar. It is the anniversary of the passing of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, also known as Great Kedushets Admur Morayitz, and the day when a year later his son-in-law, the Rebbe, formally accepted the leadership of Chabad Lubavitch. I went to the fabrengen and I enjoyed it very much. The result was that I got home very, very late, and the next morning I was late for Yeshiva. Our teacher, Rab Shaya Shemanovich, who was one of the real giants left over from the old Mir Yeshiva in Europe, realized immediately why

02:01 the two of us were late that morning. When we walked into class, he reprimanded us. Don't you realize the importance of Teta? You lost time from Teta study. You missed the class. He reprimanded us very, very harshly, and to be quite honest, I was deeply hurt. Up to that point, I thought I had a very good relationship with him. This was the first time he had come down on my case in this way. When he finished the class and it was time to go to the study hall, the Beis Hamedrash, he asked Alex and me to stay behind, and I was sure that we were about to get the second round of rebuke, but that is not what happened. Everybody else had left, and it was just the two of us with Rab Shaya. He told us an amazing story. It seems that he understood how much his rebuke had hurt us, and he decided to make it up to us, telling us by implication that the time we spent at Chabad with the Lubavitcher Rebbe was not really wasted. It seems that in 1937, when the Rebbe was not yet the Rebbe, and studying in Berlin and Paris, he was sent on various missions by the previous Rebbe. On this particular occasion, he had to travel to Vilna, Lithuania, an important seat of yeshiva learning at that time, in order to get Rab Chaim Ezer Grodzinski to co-sign a letter that the previous Rebbe had written. When the Rebbe arrived, it just happened that

03:49 Rab Chaim Ezer was meeting in his office with a visitor, another Torah luminary of the time, Rab Baruch Ber Leibowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Kamenitz, who just happened to be the leading disciple of Rab Chaim Priska. The Rebbe was told that he was going to have to wait until they finished their meeting before he can go in. As he waited, there were a few people in the study hall at the time who realized that he was a Lubavitcher Hasid, and so they decided to harass him. They started to ask him pointed questions on Talmudic topics. Did he know this topic? And what did he have to say about it? And so forth. But the Rebbe didn't answer. Our teacher, Rab Shaya, was present as this was going on because he was Rab Baruch Ber's escort, and he said that some of the people were really pestering him, the Rebbe, mercilessly. And still the Rebbe said nothing, remaining quiet. And then Rab Chaim Ezer opened the door. He stood listening to this, and then he beckoned the Rebbe to come in. The Rebbe went inside, where he began to answer the questions that had been posed to him outside. Rab Shaya said that he answered with great clarity and with great depth, quoting both early and late Torah commentators. So Rab Chaim Ezer asked the Rebbe, why didn't you answer these questions outside when they were harassing you? The Rebbe replied, I didn't come to hold debates with anybody. I noticed that you observed their questions,

05:46 and I was afraid that my failure to answer might have a negative impact on the mission given to me by my father-in-law. He feared that perhaps Rab Chaim Ezer might not agree to co-sign the letter of the previous Rebbe, so he decided to clear up the situation. After this exchange, Rab Chaim Ezer took the letter and started reading through it. In the meantime, his illustrious visitor, Rab Baruch Ber, continued to talk with the Rebbe. After a few minutes, Rab Baruch Ber said to the Rebbe, if you come and learn in my yeshiva, I guarantee that you will be the leader of the Lithuanian yeshiva world. The Rebbe politely declined. He said he had his path, knew what he had to do, and whom he had to answer to, meaning the previous Rebbe. When he said this, Rab Baruch Ber started to cry. Rab Shaya, who was present through this whole encounter, said he had never told this story to anybody before, and it was a difficult admission for him. I think that the Rebbe, a Hasid, potentially could have become the leader of a different segment of the Jewish world if he so chose.