In honor of Gimmel Tammuz, the latest installment of “From the Margins of Chabad History” presents two newspaper articles featuring the Rebbe, from the period before the nesius. One article describes the Tishrei with the Rebbe in Riga, 5690, and the second contains interviews with both the Rebbe and Frierdiker Rebbe.
By Shmuel Super
Tishrei 5690 in Riga
In Elul of 5689, the Frierdiker Rebbe departed on a 10-month visit to America. Since leaving the Soviet Union in 5688 (1927), the Frierdiker Rebbe had been based in Riga, Latvia, and a circle of chasidim coalesced around the new chatzer. Now, with the Frierdiker Rebbe away on a distant journey, the chasidim in Riga were afraid that they would be alone for Tishrei.
But instead of the Frierdiker Rebbe, Tishrei 5690 was led by his new son-in-law, the Rebbe—then known as “the Ramash.” For most of the chasidim, this was the first opportunity to spend significant time with the Rebbe and observe his conduct, as he had been living in Berlin since the chasunah at the beginning of the year.
A few anecdotes from this Tishrei are collected in Yemei Melech, vol. 1, p. 322. A detailed account of the Rebbe’s conduct during this month was written by the prominent chasid R. Eliyahu Chaim Althaus and sent to the Frierdiker Rebbe in America. First published in 5758 in Beis Moshiach, issues 186-187, this fascinating and moving account can be read here.
But not only chasidim were deeply impressed by the Rebbe during this Tishrei. The Riga-based Nayer Freitik newspaper was anti-religious and antagonistic towards Lubavitch in particular. Yet even this newspaper carried a very positive report about Tishrei with the Rebbe.
This particular newspaper is not available in the National Library of Israel’s Historical Jewish Press digitized collection, but the report—or at least part of it—was quoted in the Lodzer Togblat, published in Poland at the end of Tishrei. An abridged version of the article also appeared in the Bialystok newspaper Dos Naye Leben.
Here is the text of the article from the Lodzer Togblat, translated into English:
The Riga Freitik relates that when the Lubavitcher Rebbe traveled to America together with his son-in-law, the question arose among the chasidim: Who will conduct tish in his place and say chasidus, especially on the yamim tovim? The Rebbe told them not to fall into dejection—he would provide them with a substitute.
The Lubavitcher indeed appointed his second young son-in-law, a charming black-bearded young man, to become “rebbe” for the yamim noraim. This son-in-law, who has been living in Germany since his wedding and studying secular subjects—philosophy at Berlin University—came home for the yamim tovim and became “rebbe.”
This year too, the chasidim filled the Lubavitcher chatzer on Weidendamm St., conducted a Simchas Beis Hashoeva, and celebrated exuberantly on Simchas Torah. The new “rebbe” conducted tish, and said chasidus. He gushed with vertlach, just like the Lubavitcher Rebbe himself, and the community of chasidim licked their fingers with delight. They danced and sang, and of course rejoiced.
***
An Interview at the Perchtoldsdorf Sanatorium
Our next article is an interview conducted with the Frierdiker Rebbe at the end of 5697, in the Perchtoldsdorf Sanatorium, near Vienna. During 5697, the Frierdiker Rebbe spent two stints at this sanatorium—Adar-Nissan and Tammuz-Elul—receiving treatment for his health. Information about these stays is collected in Admurei Chabad Veyahadus Austria, pp. 155-181.
The Rebbe, who was then living in Paris, spent time with the Frierdiker Rebbe in Perchtoldsdorf. In fact, the famous picture of the Rebbe and the Frierdiker Rebbe playing chess was taken at this time, as the doctors recommended that the Frierdiker Rebbe rest from intellectual exertion (see Yemei Bereshis, p. 337). As a result, the journalist who interviewed the Frierdiker Rebbe also spoke to the Rebbe, and quoted some of the information he heard from him.
This interview was conducted by a journalist for the New York-based Yiddish newspaper, the Morgen Zshurnal. Here too, we don’t have the original article, as the National Library of Israel’s archive is missing a few months of this newspaper from this time. Fortunately, the article is preserved thanks to the Bialystoker Unzer Express reprinting it on 7 Cheshvan 5698 (October 12, 1937). However, the article may have been abridged in this version.
The article discusses the Frierdiker Rebbe’s health at the time, the activities of the Lubavitcher yeshivah network in Poland, and the Frierdiker Rebbe’s opinion on the question of a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael.
The latter issue had come into focus at this time after the British government, which had been ruling Eretz Yisrael under a mandate from the League of Nations, established the Peel Commission to investigate the causes of conflict between Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine.
On 28 Tammuz, 5697 (July 7, 1937), the commission published a report recommending that the mandate be terminated and the territory partitioned into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The merits of this plan were hotly debated across the Jewish world, and the Morgen Zshurnal journalist sought the Frierdiker Rebbe’s opinion on this matter.
We will present a translation of the full article as it appears in the Bialystoker Unzer Express, and then briefly discuss some of the points it raises, based on other contemporary sources.
A Visit to the Ailing Lubavitcher Rebbe
The Rebbe’s opinions on the plight of the Jews and on the plan for a Jewish state
As is well known, the Lubavitcher Rebbe has been ill for a while. He is staying in a sanatorium outside Vienna. A Jewish journalist visited him there recently and published an account in the New York Morgen Zshurnal.
We have excerpted the most important passages from that report.
This is what the journalist writes:
“How are you feeling, Rebbe?” was my first question.
“Thank G-d, I feel better,” the Rebbe answered in speech that was not completely clear.
This is the Rebbe’s illness. He has lost his fluency of speech and he now stammers or murmurs when he speaks. Some letters of the alef-beis do not come out distinctly, and to an unfamiliar ear it is hard at first to make out exactly what the Lubavitcher says. With time, however, you grow accustomed to it; the ear learns to catch his words, and you can understand what he says more clearly.
Together with the power of clear speech, the Rebbe also lost strength in his legs, and it has become difficult for him to walk or stand. This began shortly after his return from America five or six years ago. The precise nature and cause of the ailment have never been established. It was certainly not paralysis. Physicians who treated him at the beginning declared that if it had been paralysis, they would long since have cured him, because the therapeutic methods for such an ailment are well known. Not knowing what they were dealing with, they at first despaired of a cure and expected the condition to only worsen.
The Orthodox circles in general, and Lubavitcher chasidim in particular, will certainly rejoice to learn that those doctors were gravely mistaken. A few years ago, the Rebbe consulted the Jewish physician Dr. Gerson in Vienna. Almost magically, he stopped the progression of the sickness by prescribing a strict diet, and ever since, the Rebbe has steadily improved. His speech is becoming progressively clearer, and his legs stronger. He can now not only stand on his legs, but even walk on his own. Every day, he takes a slow walk—naturally not on his own, but always with an attendant. The attendant is for extra security in case sudden fatigue sets in, but he walks unassisted and without leaning on anyone.
The Rebbe’s younger son-in-law—also a Schneersohn, a cousin of his—who spent the summer with him in the Perchtoldsdorf sanatorium, explained that the doctors believe that the illness resulted from the Rebbe’s overly strenuous work during his visit to America.
Our talk, which lasted over thirty minutes, was not devoted solely to discussing the Rebbe’s Torah institutions, nor was it conducted on a completely solemn note. The Lubavitcher loves a nice vort, a little chasidus, and to underscore an important matter with a parable.
When I noticed how his face expressed complete calmness, despite his physical condition and his constant worries about his yeshivos he supports, and I expressed to him my satisfaction about this, he responded, “It’s a waste of time to worry… My father, of blessed memory, used to say about this: ‘One action is better than a thousand sighs.’”
Speaking of the harsh circumstances Jews face in certain lands, the Rebbe answered with a chasidishe vort: “The Jewish people are called eretz chefetz—‘the desired land’—because Jews possess the same qualities as the earth. Everyone tramples the earth, yet it remains whole. Like the earth, the Jewish people constantly produce growth. And just like the earth, the Jewish people also contain gold, silver, precious stones, and precious springs.”
Regarding the plan for a Jewish state, the Rebbe said:
“By nature, I am no wholesale merchant; I do not deal in many kinds of wares. I have a single commodity for Jews: Torah and yiras shamayim.
“People’s attitude to the Jewish state reminds me of their attitude to money. If you give a born gvir a thousand dollars, it doesn’t move him—even if his pocket is empty at that moment. However, if you give the same amount to a born pauper, it’s a big deal for him.
“We Jews are born gvirim. The Eretz Yisrael we have in our minds is the land as delineated in the Torah, large and with expansive borders.
The Lubavitcher’s youngest son-in-law, Schneersohn, filled in some details that help to comprehend his vast operations. The son-in-law makes an impression as a Jew of distinguished lineage, a scion of Torah princes.
Schneersohn first described the Lubavitcher’s daily activities. “Since he cannot speak or walk now as he once did, the Lubavitcher is even more absorbed in his work for Torah institutions. He conducts an extensive correspondence and is in contact with Jews in all parts of the world. His hands have taken the place of his feet and tongue.”
The Lubavitcher must provide for a network of a dozen yeshivos. The central yeshivah was founded forty years ago by his father R. Shalom Dov Ber Schneersohn in Lubavitch, and it is now located in Otwock, near Warsaw.
The Lubavitcher left his birthplace of Lubavitch, in 1915 during the World War. He moved to Rostov-on-Don, and later settled in Peterburg. When the Bolsheviks forced him to leave Russia ten years ago, he settled in Riga. Since 1934 he has been in Otwock, where he moved the Lubavitcher Yeshivah Gedolah, which has around 300 bochurim.
In 1920 he founded a yeshivah Tomchei Temimim in Warsaw. Together with seven other branches in Poland, this yeshivah serves as a gateway, preparatory grounds, for the Yeshivah Gedolah. With some 600 students in total, these seven yeshivos are located in Lodz, Vilna, Chełm, Gluboke, Pacanów (?), and two other towns.
Spiritually, these yeshivos are on an advanced level; the finest senior talmidim correspond with the senior talmidim of Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan. Materially, however, the situation is not good, forcing the large yeshivah in Otwock to limit the number of new talmidim for lack of means. The bochurim in all of the yeshivos are provided with lodging, food, and clothing.
In addition to these yeshivos, the Rebbe also supports the Toras Emes yeshivah in Yerushalayim.
The Rebbe has spent around three months in a sanatorium near Vienna, set in a forest on a mountainside, far from noise—a place of constant calm and stillness, broken only by birdsong.
***
The Frierdiker Rebbe on the Peel Commission
The most noteworthy part of this article is the report on the Frierdiker Rebbe’s opinion regarding the Peel Commission’s plan to partition Eretz Yisrael. One of the arguments attributed here to the Frierdiker Rebbe is somewhat of a chidush: the point that the plan only gives the Jews a small part of Eretz Yisrael.
This argument against the plan was made by the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah of Agudas Yisrael, in the statement released at the third Knessiah Gedolah held in Marienbad at this time, Elul 5697. The Moetzes’ statement proclaims (Hapardes 11:6, p. 8):
“The Holy Land, whose borders were designated by Hashem in the Holy Torah, belongs to am Yisrael, the eternal nation. Any concession regarding holy land given to us by Hashem with its borders has no validity.”
Years later, in the context of the campaign for shleimus Haaretz, the Rebbe often quoted this proclamation of the Moetzes, and instructed that it be publicized (see, for example, the letter published in Likutei Sichos, vol. 15, p. 494).
However, the other few brief sources we have regarding the Frierdiker Rebbe’s reaction to the Peel commission’s proposal do not mention this argument.
R. Mordechai Dubin, the devoted chasid and member of the Latvian parliament, gave a speech at the Knessiah Gedolah in Marienbad against the Peel proposal. His secretary R. Avraham Godin later wrote that Dubin’s advocacy against the plan was carried out at the Frierdiker Rebbe’s behest (Biton Chabad 33, Nisan 5731, p. 48).
Dubin’s speech at the Knessiah Gedolah is summarized in the Hapardes journal published at the time (11:6, p. 4):
“Mr. Mordechai Dubin, a member of parliament in Riga, gave a sharp speech against the idea of a Jewish state, saying that it posed a great danger to Yiddishkeit. He argued that the leaders of such a state would be irreligious, and they would recognize schools teaching kefirah and minus as the official government schools. Additionally, they would not allow frum Jews to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael.”
In this speech, Dubin only argues against the basic concept of a secular Jewish state, without addressing the issue of the partition of Eretz Yisrael.
The Frierdiker Rebbe himself expressed his opposition to the Peel Commission’s recommendations in a 29 Tishrei 5698 letter to R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin (Igros Kodesh, vol. 4, 138–139):
“Regarding your question about the burning questions: Practically speaking no one’s opinion—in favor or against—matters, because the strong people who wield the power will do whatever they want. My personal opinion is that the plan will cause two major terrible troubles, may Hashem protect us.”
In this letter, the Frierdiker Rebbe doesn’t give any details about what his objections are. To fill in this information, the editors of Igros Kodesh published a letter from the Frierdiker Rebbe’s mazkir R. Chatche Feigin, written to R. Yisrael Jacobson in America on 24 Elul, 5697. This letter relates details about an interview the Frierdiker Rebbe gave to an American newspaper—the very interview we have just published for the first time.
R. Chatche’s letter also provides the name of the journalist who conducted the interview, information that the Bialystoker Unzer Express failed to provide. R. Chatche gives his name as Mr. B. Shevlin, but a little research shows that he must have gotten the spelling a little wrong, and the journalist’s name was in fact Mr. Bernard Shelvin.
Here is R. Chatche’s account of the interview, as the Frierdiker Rebbe himself recounted it to him (Igros Kodesh, vol. 4, 139–140):
Today, when I was with the Rebbe for a certain matter, he began to tell me that back when he was still in Vienna in the sanatorium, he was visited—on behalf of Mr. Fishman (the editor of the Morgen Zshurnal)—by a member of the staff of that publication, Mr. B. Shevlin (this is how it is written on the card he left with the Rebbe).
The Rebbe told me that he spoke to him about our yeshivos. The Rebbe told him about your visit and the detailed regards he received from you about the state of Yiddishkeit in your land, and that he was pleased by the information.
For his part, Mr. Shevlin said that he was authorized by Mr. Fishman to tell the Rebbe that for matters related to chasidim and our yeshivos, the Morgen Zshurnal is always willing to assist. (I’m informing you of this so you should be aware, and you will surely make use of it as much as possible.)
Mr. Shevlin also asked the Rebbe his opinion regarding the news that the Jewish people are being given a part of Eretz Yisrael as a Jewish state. To this, the Rebbe responded that in his heart, he is opposed in principle to the concept of a Jewish state in such a form. His view is that this is a misfortune for the Jewish people, and soon enough, people will begin to realize the misfortune that this is.
The Rebbe told him that he isn’t speaking from a political standpoint, and he doesn’t consider himself an expert in politics.
Regarding this discussion, the Rebbe also told me that in response to Mr. Shevlin’s question about what kind of general impression the news that we are being given our own state had on him, he replied that it made no impression on him at all.
The Rebbe told me he explained to Mr. Shevlin as follows: “Take a person who was born wealthy and lived a life of wealth, and later became poor, and take a person who was born into poverty, lived in poverty, and later became wealthy. Even if, in practice, the newly rich person has more money than the one formerly rich person who became impoverished—say, for example, ten thousand dollars more—the person who lived a life of great wealth is not moved by such a sum in the way someone who came from poverty is.
“So too it is with us, the Jewish people. We were once wealthy, we had malchus Yisrael. Then we became poor—we lost it. Therefore, we cannot be excited over such a state.
We lost what we had because we didn’t conduct ourselves properly, so it was taken from us. We haven’t improved ourselves to the point that we should now think we are worthy of having it returned to us.
To take it on our own—we know that our very first king was one we asked for on our own, and we didn’t do so well with it.”
The Rebbe concluded, “I believe this is a misfortune for the Jewish people.”
The Rebbe told me that he also told Mr. Shevlin that he doesn’t want to make a tumult about this matter.
Nevertheless, the Rebbe told me to write to you about this so you should know what was discussed, in case the account is exaggerated.
***
This letter provides us with additional, complementary information from the interview that isn’t present in the article—at least not as it was republished in the Bialystoker Unzer Express.
The Frierdiker Rebbe’s mashal about the wealthy man and the poor man appears here too, but its nimshal for the topic at hand isn’t fully spelled out. Is the nimshal as presented in the newspaper article accurate? We can’t know for sure, but the general impression from the article indicates that the journalist generally understood the Frierdiker Rebbe well and communicated his opinions accurately.
If the article is accurate, we have now learned of an additional objection of the Frierdiker Rebbe to the Peel proposal, an argument that fits well with the position later expressed by the Rebbe.
(Thanks to Mordechai Dinerman for providing some of the sources about the Frierdiker Rebbe’s position regarding the Peel commission plan).
To view all installments of From the Margins of Chabad History, click here.
Thank you for writing this up as always, really enjoyable, I look forward to these.