Face to Face With the Rebbe

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Zaltzman, Shliach of the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach to Toronto, Canada shares his personal notes and stories from his 6 Yechidus meetings with the Rebbe.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok was born 30 Shevat 5716/1956, to his parents R’ Chaim Dovber and Chaya Esther a’h, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

His grandfather, the Chassid R’ Avrohom Zaltzman, came to learn in Lubavitch at age eleven, and remained there for seven years.  After he married, he lived in Charkov, Ukraine.  In 1941, with the advance of the Nazis into Russia, his family escaped to Samarkand in Uzbekistan, where (along with Tashkent) most Lubavitcher Chassidim throughout the Soviet Union eventually made their way.

In 1945, R’ Avrohom planned to join the rest of Anash in escaping from Russia with a forged Polish passport.  However, after he had sold off all of his possessions and was ready to travel, an emergency telegram arrived from Lvov-Lemberg saying that “the vacation trip was canceled, and there is nothing to come for.  The gates had slammed shut, and so R’ Avrohom and his family remained in Samarkand, broken and shattered, materially and spiritually.

Most of the great Chassidim, such as Reb Shlomo Chaim Kesselman, Reb Nissan Nemenov and Reb Peretz Mochkin, had succeeded in getting out.  At the same time, the KGB began to tighten their stranglehold, after having mostly overlooked the activities of the Chassidim during the war years, making the struggles to observe Torah and mitzvos and chinuch for their children almost impossible to bear.

This was the environment in which R’ Berel Zaltzman came of age, as he just turned bar mitzva at the time.

Shortly after the “Doctors’ Plot” came to a close with the sudden death of Stalin, R’ Berel traveled together with his friend R’ Dovid Mishulovin to open a factory in Dushanbe in Tajikistan, in the hope that it would be easier to make a living there, without having any “evil eye” noticing that it would not be operating on Shabbos.

R’ Berel traveled to Moscow to buy the needed materials, where he also did a shidduch and married his wife (Chaya Esther), who was the daughter of the spiritual leader of the Lubavitch community in the Moscow area, Reb Yehuda Butrashvili (Kulasher) of the Moscow suburb of Malachovka.  In later years, he left for Eretz Yisrael where he served as the menahel of Beis Din Rabbonei Anash.

After their wedding, they returned to Dushanbe.  The Zaltzmans and Mishulovins were the only Lubavitcher families in the entire area.  To give a sense of how isolated they were, the nearest mikva was a 36 (!) hour train ride away, in Samarkand.  Flying was not an option, since an airline ticket cost half of a monthly salary.

On 30 Shevat 5716, Yosef Yitzchok, their firstborn son, was born.

Not long after, they succeeded in building a secret mikva, in the Bukharian shul, but they moved back to Samarkand the very next year.

R’ Yosef Yitzchok received his chinuch from his parents at home.  When he reached the age of mandatory education according to Soviet law, his parents decided that under no circumstances would he attend public school.  They told the neighbors that he had left home, “He goes to school in Moscow, and is living with his grandfather in Malachovka.”

That is how he come to be under “house arrest,” under the watchful eyes of his parents, who were exceedingly careful that he not show his face outside of the home, for fear that he might be seen by one of the neighbors, and they would be in big trouble.

At the very time that back in New York the Rebbe was speaking about u’foratzta and shlichus, and Chabad was undergoing major expansion around the world, those in Russia were struggling against tremendous difficulties in the basic observance of mitzvos.

At a certain point, they opened a “school” for close to ten children of Anash in the city, of varying ages, who were divided into two class levels.

Around 1964, some bachurim arrived from Tashkent, and a “branch” of Tomchei Tmimim was started for them. Over time, other bachurim joined, until they reached the impressive number of (about) eight students!

One day, when he was eleven years old and the yeshiva was being hosted in their home, in a shack at the end of the yard, his father was grabbed off the street.  He was taken for interrogation to the local KGB headquarters.  That is a day that he will never forget.

“As soon as it became known, a few young married men of Anash came to our house and took all the ‘incriminating’ items.  Grudgingly, they let me keep a small siddur so that I could daven.” This was done out of concern that the police would conduct a search of the house.  Concurrently, they warned the bachurim to flee from the house and head to the city park, until the situation would become clear and they would be informed how to proceed.  Boruch Hashem, he was released after twenty-four hours, without any further action being taken.

In 1971, when he was fifteen years old, the family received an emigration permit.  On the 12th of Menachem Av, they flew from Moscow to Vienna.  As they were flying, he asked his father, “Nu, can we take out our tzitzis strings?”  His father answered, “Not yet.  As long as we are over Russian territory, there is still danger.”  Only when the pilot announced that they had left Russian airspace, did they allow themselves to let their tzitzis hang out and to breathe freely.

They landed in Eretz Yisrael on 14 Menachem Av.  Two weeks later, he joined the Tomchei Tmimim yeshiva in Lud.  On 24 Elul, he traveled to the Rebbe with his father, and it was on Thursday 28 Elul, towards evening when the Rebbe returned from the Ohel, that he saw the Rebbe for the very first time and made the “Shehechiyanu” blessing in a loud voice and with great emotion.

The extensive displays of closeness on the part of the Rebbe towards the newly arrived immigrants from Russia are beyond the scope of this piece.  Just to mention one such astonishing display; at the time of the tekios on Rosh Hashana 5732, the Rebbe requested that all of those who had just arrived from Russia should stand on the bima platform with him, and he waited for all of the other “dignitaries” and “aristocrats” to step down…

On Shabbos Parashas Nitzavim, 28 Elul, two days after they arrived, his father was asked to lead the Musaf services since he has a nice voice. After some back-and-forth discussion he did just that, and during most of the service, the Rebbe looked directly at him.

During the farbrengen that Shabbos, the Rebbe asked that all of those who recently came out from behind the Iron Curtain should approach and say “l’chaim.”

R’ Zaltzman recounts:

When I approached, the Rebbe asked me, “What is your name?” I answered, “Yosef Yitzchok.” The Rebbe asked again, “What is your second name?” I didn’t understand, what does that mean? So again I answered, “Yitzchok.” The Rebbe smile and said, “Your family name.” That is when I realized what the Rebbe had meant and I answered, “Zaltzman.”

The Rebbe asked, “You are the son of the baal Musaf?” as the Rebbe pointed to my father who had already returned to his place, and asked again, “That is your father?” I answered in the affirmative.

On Rosh Hashana, his father was the chazzan for Musaf on the first day.  On Motzoei Rosh Hashana, during the distribution of “kos shel bracha,” the Rebbe instructed his father to sing.  Suddenly, in middle of the distribution, Yosef Yitzchok, who was standing at the top of pyramid on the back wall of 770, felt people pulling him. They told him, “The Rebbe is calling you!”

He turned towards the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said to him, “Why aren’t you helping your father? You are obligated in the mitzva of honoring your father. Go help your father!” Within seconds, he found himself standing next to his father on the other end of 770.

The young Yosef Yitzchok remained to learn in proximity to the Rebbe for close to ten years, and in the year 5780, he married his wife from the Lifsh family of Kfar Chabad.

One year later, on the eighth day of Chanuka 5781, they left on shlichus to Toronto, Canada, to work with Russian speaking Jews, where they serve to this day.

***

Many thanks to Rabbi Zaltzman for allowing the publication of his personal notes from his personal yechidus encounters, and for the time he devoted to review, clarify and fill in, many of the details.  (Note: Translation from the Yiddish used by the Rebbe may seem a bit stilted in English, as all attempts were made to be as true as possible to the original divrei haRav.)

“IN THE MERIT OF THE MESIRUS NEFESH OF YOUR PARENTS…”

During the “ten days of repentance” of 5732, one week after he arrived at the Rebbe for the first time, R’ Chadakov approached his father, R’ Berel, and asked him if he and his son would make do with one joint yechidus or if they specifically wanted to go in individually.

R’ Berel asked his son, and he answered that he prefers to go in alone.  Afterward, R’ Chadakov told R’ Berel that he has two slots, one after Yom Kippur and one after Simchas Torah.  His father asked him which time he preferred, and Yosef Yitzchok said that he did not want to wait for Simchas Torah.

R’ Zaltzman provided some background to all of the above:

“In early Elul, two weeks after we had arrived from Russia to Eretz Yisrael, I heard my parents talking about getting a loan in order to pay for a plane ticket for me to the Rebbe for the month of Tishrei.  I told them that as far as I was concerned they could make me only a one-way ticket.  They immediately reacted with, ‘No way,’ ‘You can’t stay there by yourself,’ etc.  In the end, it was agreed that I would travel, but on condition that I come back together with my father.  And so they bought me a round-trip ticket.

“The day after Rosh Hashana, I heard from my friend Shmuel Notik (today a shliach in Chicago) and my cousin Yosef Yitzchok Mishulovin (today a shlich in Los Angeles), who were ‘classmates’ of mine and had also left Russia not long before, that they are going for an entrance exam by R’ Shmuel Heber, the rosh yeshiva of Morristown.  I decided to join them.  I was tested and accepted.  I asked them to refrain from mentioning it to my father, for the time being.

“Obviously, I wanted to stay and learn near the Rebbe, but I knew that my parents would not agree. I understood that if I went into yechidus together with my father, I would not have the opportunity to ask the Rebbe about it.  I also understood that if I waited for the day before the return flight, it would be too complicated to arrange things, which is why I preferred to go in earlier and alone.”

The yechidus took place on the day after Yom Kippur, in the early hours of the night, at around 10 pm.

In the note that he submitted, R’ Yosef Yitzchok wrote his life story up to that point, all of the events that happened to him as a child in Russia, how he avoided going to learn in the communist school, etc. He also wrote that he had been tested and accepted to the yeshiva in Morristown, and asked for a blessing for this.

When his father had asked him before he went in, whether he could see what he wrote in the note, he only showed his father the first page, saying that the second page contained personal matters, which it, in fact, did, but it also had the question about learning in Morristown.

After the fact, his father told him that he actually took pleasure in the fact that although they had just come to the Rebbe two weeks prior, he already felt open enough to tell the Rebbe everything, even more than to him, his own father!

FIRST YECHIDUS, 11 TISHREI 5732

If the administration agreed to take you as a student, it should be in a good and auspicious time.  You should remain here to learn, and have success in learning and fulfilling mitzvos with enhancement…

And with the merit of the mesirus nefesh of your parents, you should be a Chassid, a yerei shamayim (G-d fearing), a lamdan (learned in Torah), and you should succeed in learning, in Nigleh and Chassidus, and perform mitzvos with enhancement.  And learn with great diligence in general, and especially here, which will be a tikkun (rectification) for the past and a good resolution for the future. [May it be] with great success.

R’ Zaltzman recalls:

“When the Rebbe raised his holy eyes, I understood that the yechidus had concluded, and I began walking backwards towards the door.  The Rebbe did not take his holy eyes off of me and I could not turn my head to see where the door was.  On top of that, I was understandably in a state of great excitation etc.  I kept going and going and could not find the door…

“Finally, R’ Leibel Groner opened the door and pulled me out.”

When his father heard about the answer of the Rebbe, he did not have too many options remaining. The only thing to do was to inform his mother, who had remained behind in Eretz Yisrael.

Meanwhile, R’ Berel’s friends, who knew him from Russia heard that his son would be staying to learn in Morristown.  They began to convince him that if he was already staying in America, it was preferable for him to learn in Oholei Torah, under the administration of R’ Michoel Teitelbaum.  They claimed that this was a more Chassidish yeshiva, led by devoted Chassidim who were “from ours,” whereas Morristown was a yeshiva of American balabatim (working types).

When it was his turn for yechidus after Simchas Torah, he asked the Rebbe about it.  The Rebbe answered with a smile (the wording is approximate): The hanhala (administration) is the same, the bachurim are the same, but the air there (or he may have said: in Morristown) is better.

[On the literal level, the Rebbe seemed to be referring to the more rural and pastoral environment of the yeshiva campus in Morristown, where the air is actually fresher].

“TELL HIM EVERYTHING, WITHOUT HUMILITY”

R’ Zaltzman does not have a written record of his second yechidus, and it was not a private yechidus.  This is the story, as he tells it in his own words:

On one of the days of Chol Hamoed Succos 5732 (one week after the first yechidus), they made an announcement in the “small zal” that the Rebbe is calling all of those who recently arrived from Russia to his room.  About twenty-five people came.

I stood literally in front of the Rebbe, in the exact place that I had stood one week earlier in yechidus.  The Rebbe was wearing glasses and looking into a sefer.  After some time had passed, the Rebbe turned to R’ Chadakov and asked if they were all present.

When he was answered in the affirmative, the Rebbe turned to us and told us that he wants us to go to the gaon and posek, Reb Moshe Feinstein, and that we should tell him about life in Russia. One thing I recall that the Rebbe said was, “Tell him everything, without humility.”

[Just to complete the picture, we are including the rest of the story]:

When we left the Rebbe’s room, R’ Binyomin Klein and R’ Yudel Krinsky were waiting outside for us with two cars (the two cars that the Rebbe traveled in).  We got into the cars – I was in the “regular” car of the Rebbe, driven by R’ Krinsky, and we drove to Reb Moshe.

Reb Moshe was very amazed to see young bachurim and young marrieds, most of whom were born many years after the Communist Revolution, all of whom were complete and G-d fearing Jews and knew how to learn a daf of Gemara, no less than a bachur from America.

When they told him that R’ Yankel Notik was fluent in half of Shas (Babylonian Talmud), he was flabbergasted.  He asked him, “How did you do this? How where you able to withstand the nisyonos (spiritual challenges)?” R’ Yankel answered simply, “We had a choice?”

Afterward, Reb Moshe turned to us young bachurim and asked us what we are learning.  He asked us questions in the chapter of Ha’omeir in Kiddushin, and when we answered his questions articulately and so on, Reb Moshe began to tear up and wipe his eyes.

At the time, I did not understand why he was crying.  He was crying from emotion to see the fruits of our Rebbeim, in that children who were born close to forty years after the revolution, could discuss Gemara like seasoned scholars…

“AS FAR AS FOREIGN THOUGHTS DURING DAVENING”

After Tishrei 5732, R’ Yosef Yitzchok began learning in the yeshiva in Morristown, New Jersey, and would come to Crown Heights for Shabbos Mevorchim and special days in the calendar, in order to participate in the farbrengens of the Rebbe.

After four months passed, in anticipation of his sixteenth birthday, he once again went in for yechidus (as was the system back then).

From the answers, we can see that his concerns were in line with that of a full-fledged “tamim.”

YECHIDUS, 25 SHEVAT 5732

As far as pizur hanefesh (distractibility), you should hold open the sefer or kuntres (pamphlet) or siddur, this will help for the thought that it should not stray.  And another pointer for this is to learn with a friend.  And as pertains to foreign thoughts during the davening, you should learn Chitas every day and give tzedaka (charity) of a few prutos (small coins) before the davening.

And as pertains to the birthday, you should see that they give you an aliya on Shabbos, and on the day of the birthday you should give tzedaka before Shacharis and before Mincha, and have an additional learning session.  And you should be a Chassid, yerei shamayim and lamdan, and it should be a Chassidishe year and a year of yiras shamayim and a year of easy battle and conquest of the yeitzer (evil inclination).

And we should hear good news from you.

[The accounts of R’ Zaltzman’s three other private yechidus encounters, as well as two stories from his numerous group yechidus experiences with some of the wealthy donors that he brought to the Rebbe under the auspices of the Machne Israel Development Fund, in the next issue]  ■