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Weekly Chasidic Story #959 (s5776-31 / 3 Nissan 5776) Rebbetzin vs. Rabbi in Paris "As a young boy with a healthy sense of curiosity, I wanted to know why
Rabbi Shneur-Zalman Schneerson had called for my father at this late
hour." Connection: Seasonal-a week or so before Pesach.
Rebbetzin vs. Rabbi in ParisThe following story happened a week or so before Pesach. But first some background. Little by little, Lubavitch refugees from Russia left the DP camps in Poland. Many of them, including my parents, arrived in Paris, poor and bereft of everything. The Joint [JDC] continued to help out and rented some buildings for them to live in. These were buildings that had formerly served as hotels. I [Shneur-Zalman Chanin] was born in the Hotel Prima. About two years later my parents moved to the Hotel Moderne. There I grew up and spent my childhood. As far as I recall, the hotel had four stories plus a ground floor. On the ground floor and the three lower floors lived about thirty families. On the fourth floor was a shul. Our family was assigned two rooms, one on the second floor for my parents and me, and one additional small room on the third floor for my sisters. Our room served as a living room, dining room, and all-around room during the day. At night, it was a bedroom. I remember that there was a wooden table in the center with four chairs around it. There was no other furniture, but I think there were some crates that served as cupboards and that contained everything we owned. After supper we would take the folding beds out from under the table, spread
covers and pillows that were kept somewhere in the room, and prepare the room
for sleeping. We were five people, my parents, two older sisters, and me, but
we had only four beds I think those were the beds my family got from the Joint
as soon as they came to Paris and I wasn't born yet. (If we would have gotten
another bed from the Joint, for me, there would have been no room to put it!) The kitchen was shared by all the families on the floor. On every floor a small room was designated as the kitchen. It had two or three gas burners, each one having one or two fires underneath. Every housewife had to measure, mix and prepare food in a pot in her room and then shlep the pot to the kitchen to put it on the fire. Each burner served several neighbors and there was a schedule of who cooked when. But there was always a line in front of the kitchen of women had to wait impatiently to prepare food for their families. Although we all lived together in harmony and were devoted heart and soul to one another, when the older people waited for a cup of tea and babies needed their hot cereal, and the burner was occupied, there was no lack of disputes. As for hot water for washing, that was unheard of. Once a week we went to the municipal bathhouse where there were separate hours for men and women. The rest of the week we washed our hands and face in cold water. When I look back, it is hard to understand how we lived under those conditions. * * * In 5717 (1957), after my sisters went to the United States and married and my father began supporting himself and earned a bit, we were able to leave the "hotel" and move to our own apartment. It was a five star apartment relative to the times. We had our own bathroom and even had hot water from the faucet. My father rented it from the chasidic rav, Rabbi Shneur-Zalman Schneersohn, who lived in the same house. I have very pleasant memories of this period of time. I remember the spiritual wealth of those days. I remember some of the stories that R' Zalman Schneersohn told me and the chasidic melodies that he taught me when I came home. I was the only child there at that time, and he loved having me around. With my father's encouragement, I observed and learned from his ways.
He himself was destitute, but whoever asked him for help, got it. To all appearances he conducted himself expansively and on Shabbat he had many guests at his table. His apartment was considered an exclusive one and he had a very valuable library which gave people the feeling that they were in the home of a wealthy man. He gave lessons in heavily-accented French to scientists, doctors and students, and knew people in high positions in all fields. However, despite his good connections, he had no money. When someone asked him for a loan and he did not have the money, he would borrow it from others in order to lend it. It was in the days leading up to Pesach. Yeshiva had ended and I was home. Late at night, about ten or eleven o'clock, I heard R' Zalman Schneersohn call me, "Zalminka, where are you?" I left our apartment and went to his magnificent office. Right away he said to me, "My child, please ask your father to come here." I went to call my father. My father treated the Rav with great respect, both because he was a rav but mainly because he was from the Schneersohn family. He went to his office immediately. My father wasn't surprised by the request and the lateness of the hour. He thought R. Schneersohn wanted to borrow money for Pesach expenses, but I sensed that, this time, the request was different. I remained in our apartment but, as any normal child, I was curious to know why the rav had called for my father at this late hour. After a few minutes I could not restrain myself and went on tiptoes from our apartment toward the Schneersohn apartment. I lay on the floor with my ear near the crack at the threshold. My mother realized I had left the apartment and figured out where I had gone. She waited a few minutes and when I did not return she went to look for me and caught me snooping. She took me right back to bed, though not before "giving it" to me. My father remained in the office a long time and by the time he came back I was already asleep. Although I was very curious about why R. Schneersohn had called my father,
it did not occur to me to ask because I was terrified that my mother had told
my father about my mischief. If I mentioned one word about that night, I would
"get it" again. So I kept quiet. I was ten years old at the time and,
typical of children, I forgot about the matter. Quite a few years later, when we were living in New York, and R' Schneersohn had also moved to New York, my father would visit him often.I nearly always went along with him. One time, on our way back from one of those visits, while extolling the rav, my father told me what happened that night in Paris, in R' Schneersohn's office, behind the closed door. My father had entered the office and found not only R. Schneersohn but also his wife, Rebbetzin Sarah. She began by saying, "Reb Chaikel, I want to take my husband to a din Torah (rabbinical court), and I want to ask you to be the judge for us and declare who is right." My father tried getting out of it by saying he wasn't a rav, and certainly not an authority in Torah law, so how should he know how to rule? But the rebbetzin said, "I know you will rule better than any other rabbinical judge or rabbi. Both of us, my husband and I, rely on you and commit to doing as you say." Having no choice, my father agreed. The Schneersohns made a binding exchange as is customary, and the rebbetzin--the plaintiff--began: "It is a few days before Pesach and we have nothing for the festival--no matza, no wine, no meat, no fish. We don't even have pieces of bread for the B'dikat (Search for) Chametz. If I had ten pieces of bread, I would sit down right now and eat them with a cup of tea! "Today I asked my husband for money for the holiday and he told me that he had nothing. I began to shout: 'Gevald! With my own eyes I saw, a few days ago, someone giving you an envelope full of dollars. What did you do with the money?' "R' Chaikel, do you know what he told me? He calmly said, 'I gave the money as tzedaka, to those who need money for Pesach.' "'What about us? Aren't we needy?' I asked. 'You want to give tzedaka? Fine, but leave a little bit for the household expenses for the upcoming Yom Tov!'" My father heard her out and thought she was right, but he had to listen to the other side. How would the Rav justify himself? What could he say? R' Schneersohn began to speak: "There is a wealthy Jew by the name of Chaim who needed to arrange a heter Meia rabbanim (a clause in Jewish Law to enable a man to marry a second wife despite the thousand-year-old prohibition of Rabbeinu Gershom, in the instance where the first wife has gone mad and cannot accept a gett (bill of divorce). According to Jewish Law, it is necessary for at least one hundred rabbis to sign their consent in order to rescind the enactment) and he came to me for my help. "After exchanging letters with a hundred rabbis, which took tremendous effort because of the slowness of the mail, until they wrote a letter and until they sent it, and until it reached its destination and until a response was received and the process was started over with another rabbi, a lot of time went by. On Rosh Chodesh Nissan [two weeks before Seder night], I finally arranged the gett. Mr. Chaim, was very appreciative of the work that I put into this and he gave me $5000 in appreciation of my efforts, in addition to my expenses. "While the dollars were still warming my heart and my pocket, a Lubavitcher chasid came to me whose name I cannot disclose, and he told me that he has a large family with no bread to eat and no clothes to wear, and there is no money for for the festival. He told me he makes great efforts so that people will not know of his situation, so people assume he still has income. But now, before Pesach, he had no choice but to ask for help. He burst into tears and asked me to have pity on him and help get him on his
feet before it was too late. "I took out the money and immediately, before I could change my mind, I gave him all the money along with the envelope. It did not occur to me to take any of the money for myself. "If you will ask, how will we manage for Pesach? Hashem will help. In the worst case, I assume that when Chaikel downstairs will loudly say kol dichfin ['All that are hungry let them enter and eat'-from the Hagaddah for Passover night], we will join him for the Seder and he surely won't chase us out." My father told me that when he heard this story, he was struck silent. On the one hand, my father admired the rav's action but, on the other hand, the rebbetzin was right. After some thought, he decided as follows: "I, Chaikel, agree to give the rebbetzin the money she needs for the Yom Tov expenses, so that will satisfy her. However, I am giving it on condition that I am a partner in the mitzvah the rav fulfilled. I ask that the rav split his mitzva of 'azov taazov imo' ("Help your fellow-Jew in need") and Maos Chittim ('Wheat money'-i.e. money for matzah and other Passover needs) with me." R' Schneersohn and my father made another binding exchange to ratify the new deal, and all parties were satisfied: the rebbetzin, because she had what she needed for Pesach; the rav, because he fulfilled the mitzvah and without any grievances on the part of his wife; and my father, because he got a share of this lofty good deed. When my father told me the story, my admiration for my father went up sevenfold for his cleverness and the creative solution he proposed. Source: Excerpted and adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from Beis Moshiach #923 (English). Photo Credit: Hadassa Carlebach (posted on //kevarim.com) Biographical note: Connections: Seasonal-Just before Passover
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Rav
Schneersohn was a Jew of self-sacrifice. The other person was more important
to him than himself and he fully complied with the Chassidic aphorism, "mine
is yours" [and, of course, "yours is yours" - see Pirkei Avot
ch.5 --yt]
Yerachmiel
Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor
of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories
to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells
them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.