As Told in a Manhattan Office

By COLlive reporter

An exchange of letters, released to COLlive.com in honor of Chag Hageula, reveal how the Frierdiker Rebbe wanted his version of his interrogation by the GPU Russian state security organization in 1921 to be publicly told.

Appearing here in their original form for the first time, the letters were written by the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn and his secretary Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mindel.

In a first letter dated 5704 (1943), Dr. Mindel reports to the Rebbe about his participation in a question and answer session following a weekly learning program in Manhattan which is conducted by Mr. Alexander Cowen for a group of intellectuals.

Dr. Mindel mentioned the help which the Rebbe’s son-in-law, the RAMASH as the 7th Lubavitcher Rebbe was called at the time, is giving him in answering questions about Torah and science which the participants of the group are inquiring about.

In reply to the letter, the Frierdiker Rebbe expresses his pleasure that such learning is taking place and suggests that the class should include an inspirational story and he then proceeds to tell one – his own story of how he was harshly interrogated in 1921.

“This story should not to be confused with the 1927 arrest and interrogation leading up to the liberation on Yud Bais Tammuz,” notes Dr. Mindel’s son-in-law Rabbi Shalom Ber Schapiro, who adds that Tammuz 12 is also yahrtzeit of Dr. Mindel who humbly served the Frierdiker Rebbe and Rebbe as their personal secretary for over 5 decades.

Dr. Mindel, a writer and author of many seminal Chabad publications for young and old, went on to translate the story to English to be shared with Mr. Cowen’s Manhattan group and is presented here as well.

These letters are part of a wide variety of topics and mediums – letters, documents, photos and articles – spanning the decades of Chabad history in the United Stated that will be published in the upcoming book “From The Folders of the Personal Secretary.”

“The material will reflect the activities of the Frierdiker Rebbe and the Rebbe and their impact on the Jewish world and the world at large,” says the book’s editor Rabbi Schapiro of Crown Heights.

The folders also contain numerous documents, letters, articles and talks of Rabbi Mindel himself, reflecting his eclectic talents and scholarship  which he so ably used in the service of the Rabbeim in promoting and spreading chassidus.