Rabbi Binyomin Klein’s Other Side

By Rabbi Yossi Lew – Director of Chabad of Peachtree City, Georgia

The Mazkir, Horav Binyomin Klein, was a man with a great sense of humor. One regularly noticed one or two fellows, usually Israelis, standing around and they would be smiling or laughing.

Reb Binyomin himself, though, was hardly seen smiling. Certainly not laughing.

He also seemed to have a sense of urgency about him. He did not look like your typical friend. He was all business. His accented English also made him seem as though he was the “Israeli” secretary.

As such, unless one had some type of relationship with him, one felt somewhat distant from him.

I was never close to Reb Binyomin Klein. I don’t believe anyone of my family was particularly close to Reb Binyomin either. He actually seemed a little distant.

While still a Bochur, some thirty years ago, I needed to ask the Rebbe for a Brocho about a sensitive and private matter. This matter would take me out of the country for a couple of weeks. Not wishing to share this issue even with the Rebbe’s closest secretaries, I wrote the letter and carried into the Mazkirus room, the room where all the secretaries had a desk. In one corner of that room was also the pile of letters to be carried into the Rebbe by one of the Rebbe’s secretaries.

While several others were standing around, awaiting their turn to talk to a secretary, I placed my letter into the middle of the pile. There, it was now in the Rebbe’s hands without anyone knowing. I left the room as quietly as I had entered it.

A few weeks later, while walking through the hallway, Rabbi Klein noticed me. He stopped me and said: “Did you write to the Rebbe about a matter outside of the country?” He led me into the office, and said: The Rebbe sent out a dollar for Tzedakah for the trip, and gave his Brochoh. When I asked about the Brochoh, Rabbi Klein related that the Rebbe had said Azkir Al Hatzion, that this issue will be mentioned by the Rebbe at the Ohel.

The Rebbe would normally respond by writing such words on the original letter. The secretary would then read the words of the response to the sender of the letter directly from the letter. The letter would then be returned to the Rebbe. Sensing the privacy of the matter – I imagined – the Rebbe simply verbalized the words, and held the letter back.

This was typically uncanny of the Rebbe. The Rebbe’s sensitivity to another was astoundingly incredible. Equal to that, though, was whom the Rebbe chose to convey this response of a private matter. Binyomin Klein was never lost in frivolity or in being your friend. He was the Rebbe’s man at all times. With him were matters of deep and personal privacy with whom the Rebbe entrusted.

This story changed the way I looked at Reb Binyamin. He was not what anyone thought he was. He was infinitely more than that. He was the ultimate private person. So private, that the Rebbe had him involved in deeply private matters, whether private to a person or communal, especially matters which required deep secrecy and diplomacy.

The Rebbe and the Rebbetzin also had Rabbi Klein involved in personal familial matters. Among many details, some of which no one will ever know, the Kleins home hosted, more than once, the Rebbe’s personal relatives when it wasn’t practical for them to stay in the Rebbe’s own home.

Ultimately, I don’t believe anyone was really “close” with Reb Binyomin. His whole persona was to be private, to be deeply aware of the trust the Rebbe had in him, as well as other people.

When one looked at Reb binyomin during the Rebbe’s talks at the Farbrengens, and even during the singing at those Farbrengens, one never saw him involved. He would, it seemed, be looking around here and there. He did not seem to be paying attention like the majority of the people present. That was, however, the veneer, the mere outside of him. Binyomin wanted you to see that. He was very happy being considered the simple one; the one who did not really matter.

But he mattered alright. Big time. Ask the thousands who confided in him regarding deeply private matters. Ask those of high-ranking Israeli government and political officials.

And he mattered very much to the Rebbe. On the very day of the Rebbe’s stroke, in the car returning from the Mikveh, the Rebbe initiated a conversation with Binyomin that lasted well after the car parked at 770. The Rebbe could have chosen to return to his holy chambers, continuing this conversation there. The Rebbe, instead, continued this private conversation openly, for long minutes in the car. Did he ever matter to the Rebbe.

This was to be the last conversation the Rebbe would hold. Within a few hours, the stroke robbed the entire world of the Rebbe’s ability to verbally communicate.

The Rebbe chose to hold this final private conversation with the most private of secretaries in the open. To this day, no one has heard what that conversation entailed. Any time the Rebbe talked with someone publicly for that long, everyone wanted to hear and to know. But the Rebbe chose to do this with the most private of people. This conversation, you can bet, was meant to remain private to this day. But it was also meant, I believe, to demonstrate to the world how valuable, how important, how great, this man who kept himself hidden really was.

A few days after the Rebbe’s stroke, Reb Binyomin’s beard turned white. Just like that. Shortly after Gimmel Tammuz, Reb Binyomin’s entire external appearance changed. His face aged by decades. Literally. I was so shocked by what I saw that I asked his son, my good friend Levi, what had happened. “Two words”, he said: “Gimmel Tammuz”.

There was one thing that may have been private until Gimmel Tammuz with Reb Binyomin, but just poured out right after Gimmel Tammuz: His deep and most personal connection with the Rebbe. As much as he may have wanted to, he was unable to keep that a secret. The entire world was able to see how much the Rebbe so deeply mattered to him.

Rabbi Klein passed away in the same way he lived his life. In the middle of the night, in his sleep, in private.

Just as he lived his life, none of us knows about his subsequent conversation with the Rebbe after ascending to Heaven, I am sure, though, it must have had something to do with preparing for the time when, finally, everything will be revealed in the most glorious way.