A few people had a rare relationship with the Rebbe, in which their love for the Rebbe shone through powerfully and they merited that the Rebbe reciprocated with a double portion of love and caring.
Nobody can come up with a more compelling depiction of the concern of a faithful shepherd for his flock, the love of a compassionate father for his children, than the Rebbe’s devotion to his Chassidim and Jews.
A few individuals had unusual relationships with the Rebbe. Their great love for the Rebbe was reciprocated with a double portion of love. They weren’t necessarily “shpitz Chabad,” and some were plain people. Some called them pruste Yidden, but they were devoted to the Rebbe with all their heart, soul and might (money).
The topic is far too broad and the examples far too many to offer an exhaustive treatment of the subject within the constraints of time and space, but the following are a few examples from whom we can learn much.
MISTER MANCHESTER
R’ Zalmon Jaffe was a well-to-do man from Manchester, England. He served as the president of the local vaad ha’sh’chita. He fully utilized his role, his position, his connections, and his money to give the Rebbe nachas and to bring the wellsprings to cold Britain.
Before his first yechidus, in 5718, R’ Bentzion Shemtov, who was mekarev Jaffe to Chabad, gave him a list of rules of protocol. In the Rebbe’s office he was not to shake hands with the Rebbe, he was not to sit down, etc.
When Jaffe finally had yechidus at midnight the Rebbe stood up and held out his hand. Jaffe said that Shemtov told him not to shake hands. “So we won’t tell him,” smiled the Rebbe.
After they shook hands, the Rebbe invited him to sit down. “But I was told …”
“It’s okay to sit down the first three times you have yechidus,” said the Rebbe.
When R’ Zalmon sat down he thought how this would be the first and last time he would be crossing the Atlantic. He was right, though only partially so. It was the first time. The last time, which occurred after numerous trips, took place thirty years later. Of course on that occasion and in the private audiences that followed this first one he stood like a soldier.
During the visit the Rebbe gave him unusual respect. When someone dared to ask the Rebbe what this man did to deserve such respect when he hadn’t done anything for the Chabad movement, the Rebbe said it wasn’t because of what he had done, but what he would do. Years later, when Zalmon Jaffe mentioned this response to the Rebbe, the Rebbe told him with a smile that the answer was still true.
The conversations that the Rebbe had with him in numerous private audiences and at farbrengens were different than the usual Rebbe-Chassid conversations. They were the kind one would have with a good friend.
R’ Zalmon sensed this and his responses to the Rebbe were also not the norm. He would “explain” things to the Rebbe but did so with genuine love.
“At the end of one of the many private audiences,” said R’ Zalmon, “I gave the Rebbe five bottles of mashke for the Rebbe to distribute at the farbrengen. The Rebbe asked which farbrengen and I said, it doesn’t matter, the Rebbe can choose to distribute them to whoever he wants. The Rebbe asked whether the bottles came from Manchester and I said, no, from me personally. I am sure that the Rebbe can find someone who deserves a bottle of mashke.”
The Rebbe told him that he had stopped giving bottles of mashke to people because it had become disorganized. R’ Zalmon told the Rebbe that he had given the bottles of mashke to the Rebbe “because mashke lasts longer and it is easier to give it out later, but the cake dries out.”
The Rebbe asked whether there was a special reason that he brought five bottles and R’ Zalmon said, “No, the customs officials only allow five bottles tax free.”
The Rebbe asked, “What will I do with five bottles of mashke?”
R’ Zalmon said, “Take them home.”
The Rebbe said, “But I don’t like vodka.”
Then the Rebbe thanked R’ Zalmon for the visit. R’ Zalmon said that the Rebbe’s words of thanks made a deep impression on him. He was amazed that such a great man as the Rebbe would thank him for coming to visit him. “It’s unbelievable. It left me speechless,” he wrote. On that occasion, the Rebbe offered to take him home in his car.
R’ Zalmon’s great love for the Rebbe was boundless and now and then the Rebbe had to set limits. The Rebbe encouraged Zalmon to write his impressions of the Kinus Ha’Torah that took place on Isru Chag in 770.
He once spoke and mentioned that the Rebbe is the Moshe Rabbeinu of our generation. The next day, when he had yechidus, he told the Rebbe what he had said. The Rebbe pointed out that this line about Moshe Rabbeinu should be said only to Lubavitchers.
At the end of the yechidus the Rebbe stressed again that he should publish what he said at the Kinus Torah but should omit the line about Moshe Rabbeinu.
THE HECHT BOYS
When the Rebbe Rayatz came to America and announced that America was no different, he lacked American Chassidim who spoke the language and were familiar with the American mentality and culture.
“Shisha Sidrei Mishna” is how the Rebbe referred to the six Hecht brothers. Two of them, R’ Moshe Yitzchok and R’ Yaakov Yehuda (JJ) each had an entire sicha said about them in the 90’s on the Shabbos after their respective passing.
The Rebbe even went out to escort them at their funerals, just as he did fifteen years earlier for the funeral of their older brother, Shlomo Zalman. When R’ Moshe Yitzchok passed away, the Rebbe stood there for a long time looking in the direction of the aron, even after the aron had disappeared from view.
Perhaps it was because they were pioneers in the Jewish revolution in America that the Hecht brothers enjoyed special signs of closeness from the Rebbe. It was always known that the Hecht brothers had a special relationship with the Rebbe but it was only in later years, when the “treasures began to be squandered,” and handwritten notes and other things began to be publicized, that the depth of the connection became known.
On 11 Nissan 5730/1970, when R’ Moshe Yitzchok entered last for yechidus, after rabbanim and Chassidim who came to bless the Rebbe on his birthday, the Rebbe welcomed him graciously and said, “There were many here tonight but acharon, acharon chaviv (the last is beloved).”
In another yechidus, when he walked in, he saluted the Rebbe. The Rebbe smiled and said, “I should return your salute but what can I do when they see me from the window …”
“In the early years,” said R’ JJ Hecht, the Rebbe told me to get involved in something new, in addition to the usual things I was involved with. I felt that it was too much for me and that I couldn’t do it. I took the key to my office, put it in an envelope, and wrote a note to the Rebbe that I felt I couldn’t do it and therefore I was returning the key so that the Rebbe could take the role and pass it on to someone more deserving.
When the Rebbe received the note, he took a pencil and made a long line through the letter. “I have no time to read nonsense,” the Rebbe wrote. Later, when R’ Hecht had yechidus, the Rebbe told him, “You need to be happy that Hashem relies on you and gives you this kind of work.”
R’ Moshe Yitzchok Hecht wrote a similar letter after dozens of years of shlichus in Connecticut. From the Rebbe’s response we see that the Rebbe did not only see himself as a friend of the Hecht family but enumerated the years of the friendship:
“My personal advice to you as a friend for forty years is, the mosdos and activities that you do in New Haven are great and wonderful. You have succeeded as the shliach of the Rebbe Rayatz’s, the shliach of Hashem, and I believe with complete faith that Hashem ‘lo shanisi’ [I did not change] and the Rebbe, my father-in-law stands and serves up above and blesses and grants success to his shluchim now as he did then. The conclusion is simple.”
As an old friend, the Rebbe did not let R’ Moshe Yitzchok forget the friendship. After he reported to the Rebbe about the financial state of the yeshiva in New Haven and wrote that he asked all his friends to donate $1000, the Rebbe underlined the word “friends” and added (in addition to a check for $1000): “From one of them he surely did not yet take, and his name is Menachem Schneersohn and enclosed is a check for my participation.”
The Rebbe also made sure that “his friend” would have nachas from his son. On 30 Av 5737, there was a bar mitzva celebration for IDF orphans. The next day, when the Rebbe arrived at 770, R’ Moshe Yitzchok was there and the Rebbe went over to him and said, “You might not know it but your son was the guest of honor at the bar mitzva that took place yesterday in Kfar Chabad and he did very well.”
On another occasion, when he wrote to the Rebbe about difficulties regarding the mosdos, the Rebbe responded in this unique personal style:
“With some surprise – I’ve received word that he is acting in recent days like the first luchos which were given with great fanfare, but although I feel your pain, and from my flesh I see – for I also am pained, in addition to the situation 1) in New Haven (where I have ‘some’ connection to the mosad) – we have a similar situation here or something like it in our mosdos which cry out for help… I have ‘some connection’ with all these mosdos and according to the hanhala (and perhaps also according to me) the space is not adequate at all. It is like the mosad is in my room in 770, not in the courtyard of 770.
“In any case, why don’t – you and I and others – do like the second luchos which were given quietly. It was in this manner that they lasted.”
R’ Moshe Yitzchok received another rare and astonishing response after writing the Rebbe on 15 Tamuz 5734: “The Rebbe should help and do it all.”
The Rebbe responded, ““Before they call out I respond” – I have already done as you advised and sent R’ Moshe Yitzchok Hecht there. As is apparent from this letter and the previous one you still do not know him and the kochos he was given. At least try to get to know him now, and immediately everything will change: the state of mind, the bitachon in Hashem, the day to day simcha, etc. etc.”
DON’T FORGET TO WORK
Even in the years preceding the nesius, R’ Yitzchok Nemes – a young European child who came to America with his family, having escaped the Nazi inferno, had a relationship with the Rebbe-to-be. Ramash would often call him and talk to him about various things.
“After the passing of the Rebbe Rayatz I was one of the bachurim who had the z’chus to daven every day on the second floor. Nearly every morning after davening, Ramash called me and asked me if I had anything to ask. I would tell him everything that occurred the previous day and the Rebbe would listen attentively and give advice. To me the Rebbe is not just a Rebbe. He treated me like a son. I’ll tell you the truth, once the Rebbe began to formally accept people for yechidus it was hard for me, because I was used to going over to talk to him nearly every morning.”
R’ Yitzchok had many stories about his private audiences, like the yechidus that he had before his birthday. The line was long and R’ Yitzchok finally entered the Rebbe’s room at four in the morning.
“When I walked in the Rebbe asked me, ‘Yitzchok, did you daven Maariv?’ I had been so tense that I figured I would daven after the yechidus but my appointment kept on getting delayed. It’s interesting that the Rebbe never asked me that question other than that night. The Rebbe added, ‘Don’t forget.’
“After the yechidus, I asked R’ Chadakov how the Rebbe knew that this time I hadn’t davened Maariv. R’ Chadakov’s explanation was interesting. He said that the Rebbe sees a Jew’s neshama and not just his body and every time a Jew davens, new lights are drawn down on him. That night, the light of Maariv was missing on me.
“One of the early years of the nesius the Rebbe farbrenged on Shabbos Mevarchim as always. After the farbrengen, the Rebbe got up and suddenly took me and the chazan, R’ Moshe Teleshevsky for a short dance at the end of which he wished us, ‘I want to come to you for happy occasions.’”
When R’ Nemes began dealing in stamps, the Rebbe regularly advised him. The Rebbe told him to travel to Paris and said that a certain market was good for the stamp business. The Rebbe’s relationship with him was so special that sometimes, when he had a cash flow problem, the Rebbe would give him a check as a loan, without his asking for it, without any time limit for repayment.
The Rebbe constantly inquired about his business, what he had bought and sold.
The Rebbe insisted that he travel frequently on business. One year, the Nemes family was planning to move about a week before Pesach. R Yitzchok arrived from Paris on the Wednesday before and that day the Nemes couple had yechidus. As always, the Rebbe asked about the business and wondered why he had returned and hadn’t finished business. R’ Yitzchok said that his wife was about to give birth and in a few days they would be moving and it was almost Pesach.
Surprisingly, the Rebbe told him to return to Paris. R’ Yitzchok, of course, did just that. The baby boy was born on Friday night and the new mother had to make the move herself.
One time, when he returned from a trip and gave the Rebbe a report, the Rebbe said to him, “Yitzchok, you are a businessman and have to remember to do business.” The Rebbe smiled as he said this. R’ Nemes was so preoccupied with hafatza that he could forget that the purpose of his business trip was to do business.