Chodesh Elul

As the Rebbe left the shul fol­low­ing Min­cha, he stopped and spoke with Reb Zal­man about the Frierdiker Rebbe’s wed­ding and sheva bra­chos, not­ing that R. Zal­man was now in this pe­riod of cel­e­bra­tion for his son.

“The Frierdiker Rebbe’s wed­ding took place on 13 Elul, 5657 (1897), (his fa­ther, the Rebbe Rashab’s wed­ding had been on 11 Elul, 5635 (1875) ). That Sun­day, the Frierdiker Rebbe was sum­moned for army ser­vice. Be­fore go­ing to re­port for the draft, his face was made black so that he looked older. They in­deed sent him back home, where the fes­tiv­i­ties con­tin­ued with­out in­ter­rup­tion, aside from the dark col­or­ing on the chos­son’s f a c e.”

The Rebbe then con­tin­ued to tell R. Zal­man the story of how the Rebbe Rashab was freed from army duty:

“When his draft no­tice ar­rived, the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash im­me­di­ately went to the pro­vi­sional gov­er­nor to de­mand that they free his son from army duty. When the gov­er­nor re­fused to bend and back down, the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash warned him in no un­cer­tain terms, ‘Ei­ther way my son will not have to serve. You can help me by re­scind­ing the call, or I will have to travel to Mos­cow and take care of it my­self, but then the price you will pay will be a steep one. ’

“The gov­er­nor was un­moved, and to prove this he sent an­other draft no­tice. As promised, the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash hur­ried off to Mos­cow, where he re­solved the mat­ter and the Rebbe Rashab was ex­cused. In the mean­time, the gov­er­nor fell ter­ri­bly ill and within a short time died, af­ter much suf­fer­ing. ”

On Sun­day, the 15 th of Elul, as Reb Yis­roel Duch­man was cel­e­brat­ing his wed­ding in dis­tant Paris, his par­ents had the merit of go­ing into yechidus and re­ceiv­ing a spe­cial bracha for their son’s wed­ding.

Af­ter four years in the DP camp, R. Zal­man and his fam­ily re­ceived visas for en­try to the United States. On Wednes­day, 4 Elul 5711 (1951), they ar­rived in New York and set­tled in Crown Heights near the Rebbe, where R. Zal­man lived un­til his last day. Hav­ing been through so much suf­fer­ing, the death of his two sons, and just nar­rowly es­cap­ing the N.K. V .D., R. Zal­man de­cided to ded­i­cate the rest of his life to serv­ing Hashem in Torah, dav­en­ing and acts of kind­ness.

The day af­ter he ar­rived in New York, R. Zal­man went in to the Rebbe for yechidus. When he en­tered the room, the Rebbe rose from his place and said, “So, if one is per­sis­tent enough, one suc­ceeds!” It was more than a stan­dard yechidus be­tween Rebbe and chos­sid; it was a sort of re­union from days gone by in Leningrad with the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Rebbe spent a con­sid­er­able amount of time with R. Zal­man rem­i­nisc­ing about those spe­cial times.

In his di­ary en­try about this mon­u­men­tal event Reb Zal­man writes:

“On the fifth of Elul I went into yechidus and al­most im­me­di­ately the Rebbe asked me, ‘Do you re­mem­ber the far­bren­gen on the stair­case?’ Clearly re­fer­ring to an event that had taken place with both of us present. ”

At one point the Rebbe ex­claimed, “Now [here in Amer­ica] we can talk openly and freely, ” re­fer­ring to the anx­i­ety of Com­mu­nism that re­stricted even their speech.

The Rebbe, clearly ex­hil­a­rated to see him on safe shores told him, “ Nu, Reb Zal­man, from Leningrad to New York and we are see­ing each other, Boruch Hashem!”

R. Zal­man replied some­what somberly, “Yes, but the ‘ticket’ was very ex­pen­sive. ”

The Tzemach Tzedek once spoke about teshu­vah. When he lifted his gaze the chas­sidim broke into sobs.

“Teshu­vah is a mitz­vah,” he said, “like ev­ery mitz­vah. And a mitz­vah with­out joy is noth­ing (gor­nisht).”

Dur­ing his stay in Leningrad the Rebbe Ray­atz once spoke of teshu­vah and used the ex­am­ple of a talk­ing bird. “When a per­son of­fends the King and seeks his for­give­ness, he takes a bird and teaches it phrases re­quest­ing par­don. Imag­ine, now, how deeply his re­morse and re­pen­tance must pen­e­trate, un­til he is able to teach the bird these ex­pres­sions. ”

At a Shab­bos Kid­dush on the 11 th of Elul, 5696 (1936), I car­ried on at great length about rec­og­niz­ing and hav­ing grat­i­tude for G-d’s kind­ness.

“Zal­man, ” the chos­sid Mi­choel Dvorkin told me, “the Torah states that when Leah said, This time, I will thank Hashem…she stopped bear­ing.”⁴⁸

These were the in­struc­tions of a ven­er­a­ble chos­sid on how care­ful one must be when speak­ing.

48. Bereishis 29:35. ↩

R. Zal­man’s open­ness and warmth awarded him a unique re­la­tion­ship with the Rebbe. In speak­ing to the Rebbe he was di­rect and sin­cere, and the Rebbe re­sponded in kind. Be­cause of this re­la­tion­ship, chas­sidim would choose R. Zal­man – from among all the el­der chas­sidim – to present their re­quests to the Rebbe, know­ing that they stood a bet­ter chance of get­ting a pos­i­tive re­sponse.

In his di­ary, R. Zal­man records a can­did con­ver­sa­tion he had with the Rebbe in yechidus in Elul of 5728 (1968):

Once with the Rebbe Shlita in yechidus, the con­ver­sa­tion turned to eat­ing some­thing be­fore dav­en­ing. I know sto­ries, so I told the Rebbe what I had heard from R. Biny­omin Al­thoiz that Meir Shlomo the rov (the Rebbe’s grand­fa­ther) was told by a doc­tor to eat be­fore dav­en­ing. But how can one do some­thing like that alone? So he took a 25’er [25 kopek coin] and trav­eled to Lubav­itch. Said to him the Rebbe Rashab, “One re­cites Krias Shema in tefillin, and one should re­cite Shmoneh Es­rei as well. ” Nu, it’s ob­vi­ous that he didn’t have any­thing be­fore he dav­ened.

And dur­ing his fi­nal years in Leningrad Yehoshua Besh­enkovitzer, who was a rov in Vitebsk, told me how a re­spected doc­tor there told him to eat be­fore dav­en­ing. He trav­eled to Lubav­itch and the Rebbe Rashab told him, “What do you mean ‘be­fore dav­en­ing’? The doc­tor said to eat early, so you fin­ish dav­en­ing early and then you eat. ”

Af­ter the Rebbe Shlita heard me out, he said to me, “Those were early chas­sidim. To­day, one must eat, but not like those in Kfar Chabad who eat bread and her­ring… ”