The Story My Father Would Tell Us at the Seder

In earlier years, when the Crown Heights crowd was smaller, the Rebbe would personally hand out Shmura Matzah on Erev Pesach. It wasn’t a whole “shleima.” It was just a piece – but that piece was precious and every crumb was eaten, as it carried the Rebbe’s blessing with it.

Chassidim spending Pesach elsewhere would ask a friend to get a piece of matzah from the Rebbe on their behalf and then ship it to them as overnight mail, hoping it would arrive the next day in time for the second Seder.

My father, Rabbi Shmarya Katzen, received such a request one year from Shmuel, a classmate of his at Yeshiva Hadar Hatorah, who was spending Pesach in Massachusetts.

On Erev Pesach, my father went by the Rebbe and was given a piece for himself. He then gathered the courage and asked, “I would like a shtikel matzah for my friend Shmuel in Worcester.”

The Rebbe then paused for a moment. “The Rebbe just stopped and looked at me,” my father recalled. “He gave me a strange look. I wondered, did I say something wrong?”

The Rebbe then asked, “when is it going to get there?”

“For the second Seder,” my father could barely get the words out, he recalled.

The Rebbe listened but didn’t respond. He gave my father the matzah and wished him “a kosher un freilechin Pesach.”

My father then rushed to the post office on S. Johns Place and sent the matzah via overnight mail, as originally intended, and went on to celebrate Pesach.

At the conclusion of Pesach, his friend Shmuel returned to Yeshiva, and upon seeing my father, his face lit up and was full of gratitude.

He told that during his Seder on the second night of Pesach, they were just holding by rochtza, when the doorbell rang. It was the postman with the overnight mail, delivering the Rebbe’s matzah.

In perfect timing, Shmuel gave out the Rebbe’s matzah to his family to eat during motzi-matzah. And, he concluded – he was the only one who received the Rebbe’s matzah from New York in time for the Seder.

Other families in Worcester received it on Chol Hamoed…

My family and I heard this story countless times. My father would tell it excitedly every Pesach, and at other occasions over the years. He had no explanation as to why it happened. He was just elated to have been part of the Rebbe’s care for another Jew.

We will miss hearing that story from my father, of blessed memory. The familiar story, which was so often repeated, is now one that we pass on, to teach that when a tzadik decrees, Hashem fulfills.

May we all merit blessings of good health and happiness and merit the coming of Moshiach, as speedily as the Rebbe’s overnight matzah.

A kosher and happy Pesach!

Mica Soffer
Publisher and editor of COLlive.com