T’MIMIM IN MILITARY SHOES

Memories from yeshiva days in Samarkand, which symbolized the transition from the war years to relatively better times. * About the special and unusual treatment Heishke received, about a Tamim who cried after a farbrengen, and about a Tishrei when Anash in Samarkand dismantled sukka after sukka.

Our hardy Lubavitchers were unfazed. One sukka was ruined? So on to the next sukka where the same thing happened. So what? They went to a third sukka, and so on. Ah, but they farbrenged geshmak.UPSETTING ENCOUNTER

When I left the house for the first time after being sick for months, I was very thin. At the same time though, my feet were swollen and I was swollen in other places too. I went to shul in order to say Kaddish for my sister Tzivele. It was very hard for me to walk and I walked like a drunk, swaying both because of my swollen feet and because I was weak. But I kept going.

My appearance was strange even to myself. Among all the household items in our ruin of an apartment I do not think there was a mirror. As I dragged myself down the street, I met someone I knew. As he approached, he looked at me with frightened eyes, grabbed his head with both hands and exclaimed, “Is that you Heishke? Oy vey, what has become of you Heishke?”

Seeing his frightened face and hearing his emotional voice, I felt my knees buckle and was about to collapse on the ground in the middle of the street due to the weakness that I suddenly felt as a result of this encounter. The young man held me for some time and I remained standing. I could not, nor did I want to, go further to shul. I told him that I wanted to return home and he accompanied me.

When I entered our apartment and fell sobbing on my makeshift bed, my mother came running in and asked me what happened. She added a remonstration, saying she had told me it was still too soon for me to go out. I told her about my meeting with the young man that had upset me. She calmed me and said it was nearly certain that his eyes were not 100%. Zeide heard our conversation and said, “Not his eyes; his thoughts were not as they should be.”

My mother took a small mirror out of her old purse and gave it to me. She said: Take a look at yourself and see that your appearance is normal.

The truth is that my appearance was not pleasing even to me.

WHY DID THE TALMID CRY?

A few days later I went to shul again. This time, my walking was much better. The truth is that this time too, I met people who looked at me in a way that made me a bit uncomfortable, but I was getting used to that and my appearance was slowly improving.

I started learning with the Tamim I mentioned in earlier chapters, Sholom Levertov. Understandably, I looked up to him, for he was a Tamim for some time already. In addition, he was a Tamim the son of a Tamim. His father was Dovber “Kobelyaker” (Levertov) who learned in Tomchei T’mimim in Lubavitch. I could see that Sholom was a true yerei Shamayim, careful and machmir (stringent in religious observance).

The following story will illustrate what respect and holy jealousy we had for a Tamim, the son of a Tamim:

On special days, the older talmidim of the yeshiva farbrenged with us. One of those veteran T’mimim-mashpiim (I don’t remember who) devoted a large portion of what he said at the farbrengen to the special spiritual qualities and strengths that are the birthright of those who merited to learn in Tomchei T’mimim, especially those T’mimim, the sons of T’mimim, who were the majority of the students in Tomchei T’mimim in Samarkand.

Among the talmidim at that farbrengen was someone, a very young bachur who had a good head and Chassidishe middos. However, his father, a pious man who was close to Lubavitch, did not learn in Tomchei T’mimim. When the mashpia concluded the farbrengen and a few talmidim remained to digest what was said, that bachur (I’ll call him Eli) began crying inconsolably.

He cried and cried and it was impossible to calm him. What happened? He later blurted out his complaint: Why didn’t he merit to be a Tamim, the son of a Tamim? Nothing his friends said could placate him. He did not stop sobbing for a long time.

ROYAL TREATMENT

The yeshiva grew as the financial state of Anash in Samarkand improved. The hanhala had to find and rent places for the new classes and students. At first, they also had to find places for the talmidim to essen teg (lit. to eat days, i.e. each day with a different family) – to eat lunch and sometimes supper with Lubavitcher families who were in better financial circumstances.

I was one of the boys who “essen teg.” I don’t know why they found the best days for me, but not only did I have the best days; the problem (and I write that without quotation marks) was that the yeshiva spoiled me as somewhat of a “privileged character.” Some askanim even flattered me, saying that I was the “pride” of Tomchei T’mimim, when I knew good and well that this wasn’t true. I knew that I was no better than other talmidim, not in learning and not in davening, not in Chassidishe conduct and not … and not …

Was it an expression of pity because of the tragedies I had experienced? Who knows? I may have felt good at the time about the praise they showered me with, but as time went on, I saw that the “tail” was quite small compared to the big “thorn” (as the Sages say, “a tail with a thorn stuck in it,” [in Talmudic times the tail was considered the choicest piece of meat]). It cost me dearly in spiritual life. In yeshiva they hardly tested me and they were not firm with me, as was necessary. When older boys came and they divided the classes, they separated me from the other veteran talmidim and placed me in the highest zal with the new bachurim who were older than me by several years. It was not a success, definitely not, and it had a destructive impact on my life, but go turn the clock backward.

So I sat with bachurim who were much older than I was. I will mention those I remember: Hillel Pevsner a”h, Reuven Kaminetzky a”h, Mordechai Levin a”h (son of R’ Yisroel Neveler a”h), Berel Feitel’s (Levin) a”h, Yehoshua Raskin (Katzenelenbogen), Zalman Shur.

When all the talmidim of Tomchei T’mimim in Kutaisi came to Samarkand, they were also placed in the big zal: Heschel Tzeitlin a”h, Yechezkel Brod a”h, Sholom Morosov a”h, Sholom Ber Notik a”h, his brother Yaakov a”h, Moshe Morosov a”h, and Refael Wilschansky.

When the yeshiva’s finances greatly improved, the hanhala stopped the “essen teg” system and set up a kitchen for those talmidim who did not live in Samarkand and even provided money for the students’ other needs.

AN ELEVATED TISHREI

I don’t remember the precise date that the yeshiva in Samarkand was founded, but what I do remember is the month. It had to be Tishrei 5704/1943 when the yeshiva’le officially became “Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim.” The yeshiva grew from a dozen talmidim to several classes with dozens of students.

I have already related in previous chapters how in that month of Tishrei there was a “coronation” of the yeshiva with the holy name of “Tomchei T’mimim.” For this occasion, the askanim of the yeshiva brought to Samarkand from Tashkent the former menahel of Tomchei T’mimim, R’ Yona Cohen, one of the ardent mekusharim of the Rebbe Rayatz. R’ Yona was the acting menahel of the yeshiva when R’ Nissan Nemanov was arrested in the late thirties (you should know that a menahel in the cruel Soviet Union did not sit in an office with secretaries and typewriters. Everything was done secretively, mostly mouth-to-ear as well as a minimal amount of coded correspondence).

When R’ Yona came to Samarkand in Tishrei, he applied the sacred and much yearned for “stamp” of Tomchei T’mimim on our yeshiva. The young men rejoiced and we talmidim of the yeshiva certainly rejoiced greatly. Although my mind plays tricks and my memory unmercifully recedes, I cannot forget that Tishrei in Samarkand.

The Chabad k’hilla had recovered physically and financially following the terrible period of starvation and disease that claimed the lives of numerous victims.

Lubavitchers began, more or less, to earn a living, at which point they demonstrated how one turns gashmius into ruchnius. The yeshiva flourished and shiurim began to develop amongst the young married men. The Chassidishe farbrengens warmed and filled people’s hearts.

The way it is etched in my memory, the farbrengens of that month of Tishrei reached a great spiritual high that I had never experienced before (and maybe after). It was a Sukkos that was one big farbrengen in which they went from sukka to sukka.

Most of the sukkos were far from sturdy. The walls were constructed out of old rugs, mats of reeds and the like. They were kosher according to halacha but not quite “straight.” When a big crowd gathered in a sukka like this, the walls collapsed and the s’chach landed on the heads of the people farbrenging. However, our hardy Lubavitchers were unfazed. One sukka was ruined? So on to the next sukka where the same thing happened. So what? They went to a third sukka, and so on. Ah, but they farbrenged geshmak.

TEMPORARY GARDEN OF EDEN

A little background to the situation in Samarkand during and at the end of the war. Few spoke about it but the facts were that at that time, we Lubavitcher Chassidim suffered less from Soviet persecution. The reason was very simple. During the war, Soviet Russia had a political alliance with the United States and England. Thanks to this relationship, Russia enjoyed massive financial support that no other country received.

I once read in some report that the financial help that Soviet Russia received from America during the five years of the war added up to over thirty million dollars! This enormous sum is large today too, but back then, it had much greater value. But that is not all. America also granted Russia a loan of over twenty million dollars, but as you can imagine, Russia paid dearly for that loan.

The aid from America came in many forms, money and goods, and even we in distant Samarkand benefited from it. The way things worked in the corrupt, rotten Soviet Union, was that many of those goods that America and England sent, were sold in the Tashkent bazaar. Bachurim from our yeshiva bought big, strong English shoes there, and those with slightly more means bought American military khakis and what not!

Mainly, as mentioned, we felt it in the atmosphere. We had open minyanim for davening, we farbrenged and danced on Yomim Tovim in the yards, and we walked in groups on the streets and in the alleyways. We did not rely overly much on the “new winds” in the accursed country, but this little bit of freedom was a piece of Gan Eden.

We yeshiva students would walk together, banging with our heavy English shoes on the cobblestoned streets. When, in the Soviet Union, did yeshiva bachurim walk in the streets in such an open noisy way?