By Anonymous
“From the day I first went to Cheder, earlier even, an image of the future Geulah began to take shape in my imagination – the redemption of Am Yisrael from it’s final Galus, a redemption so profound that through it, the suffering of galus, the gezeiros, the destruction, will be understood. With a full heart and complete understanding, we’ll be able to say on that day “I will praise you Hashem, because you were angry with me” (i.e. we will be able to see that all the suffering was really hidden berachos)”.
This the Rebbe writes in a 1955 letter to then newly elected Israeli President Yitzchak Ben Tzvi, explaining why he found it difficult to address him as “Nasi”, or “president”, a title used in halachah to describe a king in yemos hamoshiach, at a time when Yidden are still “דווים דחופים סחופים ומטורפין ויסורין באים עליהם”, “anguished, suppressed, despised, harassed, and hardships are visited upon them”.
At age five, the Rebbe is preoccupied with the suffering of Klal Yisrael, “דווים דחופים סחופים ומטורפין ויסורין באים עליהם”, and dreaming of a solution.
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Over the course of Yom Kippur day, 1973, the Chassidim in 770 started to hear worrying news coming out of Eretz Yisrael; rumors were spreading, that there had been heavy casualties in a surprise war that had begun that morning on multiple fronts.
Some began to connect the dots: a week earlier too, on Rosh Hashanah, as the Rebbe prepared for tekios, he had cried uncontrollably for ten long minutes, in particular getting stuck in reciting the Passuk “אל יעשקני זדים“, “do not let evildoers wrong me”.
Also on erev yom kippur, the Rebbe had put out an urgent message to his followers in eretz yisrael that “in all the yidden’s wars, throughout their history, they emerged victorious. So too will be the case now, and until Moshiach’s arrival.”
In fact in hindsight, it seemed that all summer the Rebbe had been predicting this scenario – a scenario of the kind he had long been warning against. For years, he had been urging his extensive network of contacts in Israel’s military and political apparatus, and especially field general Ariel Sharon who directly oversaw border defense operations and who often met with the Rebbe at 770, that there were some serious mistakes in the way the Israeli army had set themselves up to handle potential attacks from neighboring Arab countries. The Rebbe told them how when he and the Rebbetzin lived in Paris, he had himself gone to take a look at the military defenses the French had set up to protect against the Germans, and argued the Israelis were now making the same mistakes that had cost the French the war to the Nazis – they were spreading their defenses too thin.
All that summer, as tensions rose on the Israeli-Egyptian border, it seems the Rebbe could see that the catastrophe he had been warning of for years was taking shape. He was arranging children’s events for davening, something he often did when there was a serious situation in eretz yisrael, quoting the passuk “מפי עוללים וינקים יסדת עז, להשבית אויב ומתנקם”, “out of the mouth of babies and infants you have established strength, to still the enemy and the avenger”. When he was informed of the war’s outbreak on yom kippur morning, the Rebbe said “ich vais”, “I know”.
As the end of Neilah approached, and the crowd ended Avinu Malkeinu and waited for the Rebbe to continue with Davening, they could hear how the Rebbe was crying – loud. His entire body shook, twisting back and forth, his face covered with his Tallis.
In the Rebbe’s presence, the end of Neilah was typically a time when the “Napoleon’s March” would be sung, a moment when the Rebbe would jump up on his chair facing the crowd and dance and encourage the singing, celebrating the yidden’s victory in the beis din shel ma’alah. As the Rebbe’s crying continued for a long time, some wondered how he would conduct his exalted “seder ha’avodah” at the end of Neilah that year, at a time when the gezar din of klal yisroel seemed to be hanging by a thread, with millions of Yiddishe lives at immediate risk. But in fact, when the Rebbe did eventually turn to face the crowd for Napoleon’s March, many tell of the unique intensity of his conduct that year, how the energy with which he encouraged the singing and dancing was something they had never before seen from him.
But they also tell, how that year there were some other irregularities as well. As the Rebbe danced to Napoleon’s March – a time at which his countenance always radiated Simcha – that year he kept his face covered with his Tallis. That year, as he danced and encouraged more than ever for the crowd to participate in the Simcha, his unrestrained crying at avinu malkeinu continued right through Napoleon’s March, his cries so loud they could be heard even over the crowd’s spirited singing and though he stood on an elevated platform.
That year, as the Rebbe raised the temperature of the crowd’s Simcha, together at the same time, he raised the temperature in his cry that Hashem have rachmanus on his children. That yom kippur, at Napoleon’s March, as klal yisrael held its collective breath at the fate of millions of yidden, together at the same time, more than ever the Rebbe danced, and more than ever the Rebbe cried.
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In the days leading up to the Rebbe and Rebbetzin’s last minute escape from the Nazis to America, the Rebbe drafted some thoughts in the notebooks he always carried with him.
The Rebbe was at a crossroads between one continent and another, a continent where his father was still exiled in Siberia, where his brother and the Rebbetzin’s sister would soon perish under the Nazis, where his father-in-law had been so viciously persecuted, and a “Medinah Shel Chessed” as he referred to America.
He was also at a crossroads between one yiddishe environment and a new, unfamiliar one – a transition from the shtetlach, the old times, the places chassidus had thrived for centuries, where the Shneersohn family had been titled by the Czar “honored citizens for generations”, and the “goldener medinah”, a place considered in the old country to be a slippery slope, where so many yerei’im v’shleimim had lost their yiddishe identity, where they had started to work on shabbos and drifted further and further, where no one really knew how and if a chassidisher rebbe would attract any attention.
And, he was at a significant personal crossroads as well. His secretaries often told how with all his engagement with the Klal, he was the loneliest person they knew – intensely private by nature. Aside from the Rebbetzin, no one really knew him. All his younger life, with all his extensive Askanus aiding his father-in-law in his fight for Yiddishkeit in the Soviet Union, he had always found a way to carve out for himself a private life away from the limelight. He knew now, that escaping Europe and living right by his father in law’s side in America, he would have to significantly engage with the public – and even with the Nazis on his heels, he did not want to go. At his last chance to take a ship out of Europe, when he finally had visas and boat tickets out, the Askanim who had worked so hard to obtain those visas had to work harder yet to convince him to use them and take the boat. They were exchanging letters between themselves to “tell him that when he gets here, he’ll be free to live al hatorah ve’al ha’avodah as he desires, though in reality of course his father-in-law will put him right to work”. Living so close to his father-in-law, he knew, would be the end of “Mendel Schneerson”, of the private life of torah and avodah he so wanted, and the beginning of his immense public mission, of his tafkid as Rebbe to the entire world.
Yet still, in reading the Rebbe’s notes in those days leading up to his final boat ride out of Europe, with so many profound shifts taking shape and so much room for contemplation, we see that the rebbe is preoccupied with that other “tale of two continents”, the burning question that began on one end of the ocean and would have to be picked up on the other – the question of am yisrael going up in flames across Europe, and of the emunah needed to inspire the she’eiris hapleitah across the sea to rise up from the ashes. He is engrossed in the questions that would define his life and his life’s work, of the suffering of klal yisrael, of galus and geulah, those questions and solutions that had captured his imagination “from the day I first went to cheder, earlier even”. Approaching the new world, his mind, as always brimming with Torah and running through all its chelakim, is formulating his approach, his vision, where he sees this all going, where he sees himself guiding klal yisrael towards.
In these notes, the rebbe discusses a gemarah in Sanhedrin that “אין בן דוד בא אלא בדור שכולו זכאי, או כולו חיייב” – “ben david will not arrive except in a generation that is entirely worthy, or entirely unworthy”.
Essentially, the gemarah is touching on this question: in the end, who would be the one to bring the geulah? Would it be the yidden, by shining a light through the darkness and achieving a world that is “entirely worthy”, “kulo zakay”? Or, would hashem see that the darkness had grown so thick, that the world was so “entirely unworthy”, “kulo chayav”, that he would no longer expect of the yidden to keep on with the mission of shining a light through the dark, and would instead himself bring the geulah.
It’s my own observation, but I find that in following what the Rebbe shared with us of his personal Avodah over time, we can often detect two different attitudes, both in action at the same time – something similar to what we saw on that yom kippur day in 1973, when the Rebbe both danced and cried at the same time. And in reading these notes, that the rebbe drafted at this defining moment, perhaps we can try make sense of this seeming paradox.
On the one hand, in the Rebbe’s presence there was very much the aura that we are moving forward, that we were not walking, but running, that we were conquering the world and soon approaching it’s final conquest – as the Rebbe once said “mein inyan iz uftzuhoiben”. The Rebbe was indeed reading all those letters in his office, he was intimately in touch with all the problems and tzoros, but he could go downstairs into the shul and join in a children’s “rally”, being MC’d, in good humor, or is the Rebbe once said “in the American style”, by R’ JJ Hecht, he would encourage the singing of songs in English composed in summer camp, and share divrei torah with the children on their level, about the children being hashem’s army marching right along toward geulah. There was always something happening, that left everyone uplifted, that left the spirit of the mission moving forward. At a Purim Farbrengen, he could call over the cameraman, in the process causing him to leave his live TV broadcast camera in middle of the room, and tell him to forget for a moment about his profession, and seeing as it was Purim, to say Lechaim – and then, seek out the other cameramen all over the shul capturing the moment from all angles, and signal, with a broad smile, for them too to say Lechaim. And also in honor of Purim, with the crowd of thousands present, he could have someone make a “kuleh” on the table. The Chassidim always referred to Simchas Torah as “Dem Rebin’s Tog”, “the rebbe’s day”. Over Sukkos, the rebbe would encourage tremendous simcha, reaching its peak on simchas torah. The Rebbe would throw himself into each Hakaffah, into every moment of the Yom Tov throughout its forty eight hours, and anyone who was there tells how what he had seen cannot be described. These uplifting moments, the place the Rebbe brought us to on simchas Torah, this was the rebbe’s “zahir tfei”, this was “dem rebin’s tog.”
Yet in middle of all the simcha – of the spirited Napolean’s march at the end of neilah, of the all night simchas beis hashoevahs he encouraged, and just hours before those exalted hakafos – there was that brief serious moment of hoshana rabba, where something beyond the surface could sometimes be seen through the cracks. Where, as an example in his well known sicha on hoshanah rabba 1983, the rebbe could speak about how there is no explanation for galus, his tefilah of “ad mosai”, his wish of “eilecha kivinu kol hayom”, and of the passuk “oidcha hashem ki anafta bi”, “I thank you hashem because you were angry with me”, that solution he had dreamed of at age five when he imagined a time when we would be able to see how how all the tzoros were really hidden brochos.
That sicha, in 1983, is hard to watch. The Rebbe breaks down, sobbing uncontrollably like a child. He holds his head in his hand, blocking its view from the crowd and leaning it on the shtender, something he rarely if ever did – his demeanor in public was overall more reserved than his father-in-law for example, who often openly displayed his emotions.
In fact during those very hakafos that shook the world, as he danced and brought us along with him to a place that lost all semblance of order, those who were watchin closely could see that his lips were moving. His singular message to us was to rise to the challenge of devotion to that small Sefer Torah he held up high in his outstretched arms, to strive to achieve a generation that is “kulo zakay”, but perhaps what he was saying, though so out of our reach to know for sure, perhaps those words were brochos to klal yisrael, tefillos on our behalf, perhaps he was communicating to hakadosh baruch hu that other message he held in his heart, his demand to put an end to this “dor shekulo chayav”, to end the suffering of klal yisrael.
Those who knew the rebbe well and had been around for some time had seen those off moments, at those same farbrengens that so uplifted the spirits of klal yisrael, that formed the trademark chayus of Lubavitcher Chassidim, that implanted his spirit in the chassidim to devote themselves to reaching klal yisrael at all corners of the earth, those moments such as when he spoke of the Yidden still stuck in Russia, that there was just no way he could hold back his tears. Somewhere behind the veil of the never ending spirit and simcha and encouragement, of the endless initiatives and calls for action, of the boundless appetite for more and more, the Rebbe was hoping that Hashem would consider the work that had already been achieved to be enough, and take us out of Galus “now”, “Velo Ikvan Afilu K’Heref Ayin”. As long as Hashem has not yet made that call, as long as we are still here, we have the achrayus to set up camp, to take our Avodah all the way, to go and move and conquer the world. Yet there was always that undercurrent feeling, that just beyond the joy, was the sorrow. Beyond the hope, the yearning. Behind the smiles, the tears.
Perhaps a story of the Rebbe’s life can best illustrate this point –
There was a time period in his early twenties that the Rebbe, though he had not yet been introduced to the Rebbe Rayatz’s daughter and his future Rebbetzin, was playing a key role in the Rebbe Rayatz’s court, working closely with the inner circle of chassidim more than double his age, who served as the Rebbe Rayatz’s secretaries and managed his extensive network of secret chadarim, yeshivos, and mikvaos all over the Soviet Union. The Rebbe, then 24, had come to spend Sukkos at the Rebbe Rayatz’s court along with many other chassidim, and the Rebbe Rayatz had immediately noticed him and set him up with that inner circle. He was preparing, to take him as his son in law.
There was a Farbrengen of the Rebbe Rayatz during that period, on Purim 1927 in St. Petersburg, that the Rebbe very often told of. For the old timers who had also been present at that Farbrengen, to them too it was deeply etched in their memories.
The atmosphere was extremely tense. Present were members of the yevsektzia, a Jewish faction within the communist party, who were in fact the ones most antagonistic against any sort of emunah and shmiras torah u’mitzvos. The Rebbe Rayatz, at the time the de facto leader throughout Russia for anything related to authentic Yiddishkeit, was their direct enemy – and competition. Since moving to St. Petersburg shortly before, he had been affecting their bottom line – he was discouraging participation in their events, they were seeing a drop off in subscriptions to their publications. Most recently, they had organized a convention in St. Petersburg of Rabbanim across Russia, and the Rebbe Rayatz had sent his Chassidim all over to convince Rabbanim not to join. Indeed many Rabbanim didn’t sign up, and the event had to be canceled. He had then gone on to back a different conference, to which they weren’t invited.
It was a time when Stalin was on a rampage to instill fear and solidify his power, and had empowered local secret police departments all over the country to jail, exile, and execute at random, whenever they were suspicious, to set up mock trials and completely work around any kind of legal system. It was a good time to conform with the status quo communist ideologies, a good time to be making friends, not enemies – especially not enemies with any influence or connections -, and if you did have non conformist ideas, it was certainly a good time to be standing on the sidelines. The Rebbe Rayatz did not conform, he had many enemies, and he was not keeping quiet at all.
In the weeks leading up to Purim, the tensions had been coming to a head. One of the Rebbe Rayatz’s personal secretaries and manager of his network of underground yeshivos, R’ Chonye Morozow, had been arrested and jailed at the infamous prison on Spolerna street. (The end of that story was unfortunately not a happy one. A few months after that Purim, R’ Chonye was sentenced to three years of forced labor at a Siberian Gulag. He managed to escape to other cities, living for a few years as a fugitive constantly a step ahead of the law, but was eventually caught, this time shot and killed that same night). In the style of the times, the yevsektzia had many ideas about the world and how it should run, and the ends justified any means. They were intent, and everyone knew it, on securing the right permissions within the local secret police department to arrest and shoot the Rebbe Rayatz himself.
At this Purim Farbrengen, they sent their people as they always did, who stood directly across from him, writing down every word he said. As he spoke, the Rebbe Rayatz repeated again and again, that after shabbos, the chassidim present should reach out to all the communities they were in touch with, and tell them in his name that whoever sent their children to yevsektzia schools would not live out the year r”l. The Chassidim, watching the anger rising on the faces of the Yevsektzia agents and terrified for the Rebbe Rayatz’s life, kept interrupting, trying to stop him from repeating his words.
In the weeks and months following that Farbrengen, the Chassidim knew it was a matter of time. The local Chassidim checked in on the Rebbe Rayatz’s apartment constantly, and the Chassidim further away called in a few times a day to see what was going on. Indeed a few months later, the yevsektzia had the Rebbe Rayatz arrested and brought to Spolerna, and had everything lined up for a shooting against the wall that night. The authorization for the shooting expired at 1:00AM. Walking toward the interrogators office, who had the authorization document for his execution on his desk, the Rebbe Rayatz had wandered off down a wrong hallway, and by the time the guards realized he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, it was already after one. B’nisei Nissim, the Chassidim had bought themselves some time.
It was a terrifying night for everyone. The Rebbe was the first to discover the news. He had been approaching the apartment, when the Rebbe Rayatz’s daughter, his future Rebbetzin, called to him from the window “Schneersohn, we have guests” – obviously meaning the secret police. The Rebbe ran and alerted the rest of the inner circle. They knew, that anyone associated with the Rebbe Rayatz and his operation, were at immediate risk. All financial ledgers, all information files, had to be destroyed. They rushed about town, getting rid of evidence, and hiding the Rebbeim’s precious writings that the Rebbe Rayatz held in his possession. Any one of them, they knew, was at immediate risk of being brought to Spolerna and sharing the Rebbe Rayatz’s scheduled fate that evening of being shot against the wall.
The Rebbe and the Chassid R’ Elya Chaim Althauz ran to the apartment of the secretary R’ Chaim Lieberman, to tell him what was going on and to destroy all evidence he had in his apartment. Shortly after, the secret police came to R’ Chaim’s apartment to arrest him. They saw the shreds of paper in his fireplace, and understood that he had gotten the message and was a step ahead. They spoke to the security guard of the apartment complex, and under interrogation demanded from R’ Chaim to know who those other two men were who had come to bring him the information, but he managed to not break under the pressure. Later that night, R’ Chaim crossed paths with the Rebbe Rayatz in Spolerna.
Over the next few weeks, that inner circle managed to get the message to the Chassidim abroad, who B’nissei Nissim managed to orchestrate enough international pressure from the States and other Eastern European countries that had economic ties with Russia to secure the Rebbe Rayatz’s release. After this imprisonment, it was clear that he would have to leave the country for good.
He never really recovered from what he endured during those few weeks in jail – though he later told the Rebbe that he wouldn’t trade those few weeks for anything. He had been interrogated and tortured, he had been pushed down several flights of steep iron stairs and the buckle of his belt had stabbed his stomach. He went on a hunger strike until his Tefillin were brought to him, and when he pushed back and refused to stand when they tried to take his picture on Shabbos they beat him badly, including a punch under his chin that seriously damaged his health. By the time he arrived in America a few years later, he was paralyzed and wheelchair bound, at age 59.
On that Purim night, at the end of that Farbrengen that was so etched in the Rebbe’s and the Chassidim’s memories, at the very height of the Rebbe Rayatz’s Avodah of mesiras nefesh, the Chassid R’ Yankel Maskalik sat on the floor, and sang the Niggun “Kol Baya’ar”. Later in America, at Purim Farbrengens, the Rebbe often sang this Niggun.
Composed by the “Shpolier Zayde”, a talmid of the maggid, the Niggun is a dialogue between hashem and the yidden, where hashem is searching for them in a forest, calling out for his children, asking why they had left and forgotten him. The yidden reply, “we are trying to reach you, but there is a guard standing at the door”.
Once at the Rebbe’s Farbrengen, when the Niggun ended, one of the Chassidim added a third stanza, in which hashem replies that the guard is not a real problem, because Teshuvah can cure all. The Rebbe turned very serious, and motioned to this Chassid to not add that third stanza.
The Rebbe was sitting at his regular place in shul for farbrengens, at the exact spot from where he had inspired the largest movement of teshuvah the world has ever seen, the army of 5,000 shluchim in over 100 countries across the globe, the millions who turned to him, yet he was asking that this line about teshuvah not be repeated. When it came to his message to the world, the spirited call that touched all those within his enormous reach, the Rebbe was inspiring and demanding that we achieve more and more, he would add another initiative, demand an increased “shturem” in some new project, he would push us toward the very edge of our capabilities to achieve a generation this is ever more “kulo zakay”. Yet when it came to the internal dialogue between hashem and the yidden, within the quiet four walls of his pure soul, the rebbe, as moshe rabbeinu and “saneigoron shel yisrael”, “defender of the yidden”, was demanding of hashem to put an end to this “dor shekulo chayav”. The Rebbe had seen so much over the course of his life, he had for so long carried the burden of the tzoros of klal yisrael; the niggun of R’ Yankel Maskalik on that darkest night was still ringing in his ears. “Der Shomer Shtayt Baim Tir”, we are lost in a forest looking for you, we have searched and searched but do not understand your ways, and we need you to bring the geulah. As saneigoron shel yisrael, the rebbe wanted the yidden to have that final stanza, to leave the ball in Hashem’s court.
