Shavuos

My zeide told of one Shavuos when Chaim Ber, the Rebbe’s at­ten­dant, brought out large jugs of mashkeh and trays of food af­ter dav­en­ing.

Af­ter the Kid­dush my zeide ran off to the Rebbe’s son, R. Chaim Shneur Zal­man — sit­ting at the ta­ble with chas­sidim — who asked, “What’s go­ing on at my fa­ther’s?”

“The same as here, ” my zeide an­swered.

“Then my ac­tions matched the ac­tions of a great man, ” replied R. Chaim Shneur Zal­man.

They served blintzes but my zeide didn’t take any­thing.

“Why aren’t you eat­ing? The food is from there,”14 said R. Chaim Shneur Zal­man.

“So?”

“This is shi­rayim (left­overs ) from a tzad­dik, and has pow­er­ful ben­e­fits to have sons and daugh­ters; and for one who doesn’t need that, it brings about love and awe of G-d. ”¹⁵ My zeide was deeply moved. Al­though the food had sim­ply been sent from the Rebbe’s home to all the chil­dren, he nev­er­the­less called it “ shi­rayim from a tzad­dik.”

15. Love and awe are also called "son and daughter. " ↩

In the sum­mer of 5674 (1914 ) the rail­road added a fourth class that was half the cost. Nor­mally from Homil to Kras­noye one paid four rubles and five kopeks, but now it was only half as much.

I had wanted to go for Shavuos. Tak­ing my tefillin and head­ing for the train, I told my brother that that evening he should say that I had left for Lubav­itch.²⁰

When I re­turned from Lubav­itch, my zeide told me, “You acted cor­rectly; some­times you have to do things that way. But me — you should have told! I would have given you a three-ru­ble note for the way!”

From Kras­noye I went on foot to Lubav­itch. The spir­i­tual plea­sure of that Shavuos was ex­tra­or­di­nary. The Rebbe — it was the mourn­ing pe­riod for his mother, Reb­bet­zin Rivkah — led the dav­en­ing [ dur­ing the week­days ].

Such a baal mochin, such a won­drous mind he pos­sessed! Yet, one time, while recit­ing the Shema and say­ing “ echad” in deep thought — he snapped his fin­gers.

20. Apparently he was afraid he would be chastised for running off to Lubavitch unnecessarily. ↩

When my brother-in-law Yitzchak Minkovitch and I came into the chil­dren’s room,²⁰ the Rebbe asked, “Did you learn Chas­sidus dur­ing this time?”

“We re­cited Tehillim,” I an­swered.

“I wrote the maa­marim, ” the Rebbe said, “un­til they took away the pen­cil. ”

A few hours later the Rebbe gave us – through the Rebbe Shlita – the maamorim of Shavuos, and on the first maa­mar, be­gin­ning Anochi, it was writ­ten, “Writ­ten in prison, 19 Sivan 5687 . ” On the maa­mar be­gin­ning Vayed­aber it was writ­ten, “Writ­ten in prison, 20 Sivan 5687 . ” The last word was “light. ”

(When I was in Mala­chovka²¹ and asked for the end of the maa­mar, the Rebbe an­swered, “Noth­ing more came. ”²²)

20. In the Rebbe's home on 3 Tammuz before he left for exile. ↩
21. A suburb of Moscow. ↩
22. In the original: Es schreibt zich nit mer. ↩

Purim 5687 (1927) was ter­ri­fy­ing. “Who are they, the Yevsek­tzia?!”¹⁷ the Rebbe screamed. “A rabbi’s son? A butcher’s son? A vil­lager’s son? I am not fright­ened by them. ” His in­ten­sity be­came fiery. He un­but­toned his kapota; you could see his tallis katan. “I ac­cept upon my­self the four forms of ex­e­cu­tion, ” he screamed. “When you see the body aflame you should not have com­pas­sion. ”

The chos­sid R. Meir Sim­cha be­gan shout­ing, “We need the Rebbe here.”

But the Rebbe re­peated again and again, “We must sac­ri­fice our lives — but not send our chil­dren to their schools. ”

Know­ing that in­form­ers were present we were very fright­ened and called his mother, the Reb­bet­zin, to re­strain him. He stood up the mo­ment she came, but told her, “Mother, go back to your room and say some Tehillim, with tears — with no one watch­ing. That will help. ” And he re­as­sured her, “I am not do­ing any of this on my own ini­tia­tive. I asked Fa­ther. ”

The Reb­bet­zin con­tin­ued to stand and speak, un­til he fainted — and barely re­vived.

Ev­ery­one was in dread. The ar­rest came af­ter Shavuos.

17. The rabidly anti-religious “Jewish Section” of the Soviet Communist Party. ↩

When Reb­bet­zin Nechama Di­nah, the wife of the Rebbe Ray­atz, pre­pared the fes­tive milchige seu­dah — that is to say, the Kid­dush — for the first day of Shavuos she would tell dif­fer­ent sto­ries.

Once she re­lated that her grand­mother, Reb­bet­zin Rivkah, the wife of the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash, dav­ened at length like the great chas­sidim. (I was quite pleased to hear this since my un­cle, R. Yehu­dah Leib Chas­dan — the shochet from Homil — re­ported that he had seen her in deep con­tem­pla­tion of “Echad” for more than two min­utes.⁴³)

The Reb­bet­zin also spoke of the bril­liance of De­vo­rah Leah, the daugh­ter of the Rebbe Ma­ha­rash, and how De­vo­rah Leah praised the Reb­bet­zin for rais­ing her chil­dren so well.

She men­tioned Reb Zal­man Aharon, the Rebbe Ray­atz’s un­cle, as well as her fa­ther-in-law, the Rebbe Rashab, and ex­pressed her deep sat­is­fac­tion that when she brought the chil­dren erev Rosh Hashanah and erev Yom Kip­pur to re­ceive the Rebbe Rashab’s bless­ing, he would bless her, as well, with his hands lifted over her head.

43. See, too (above): The Rebbe Rashab, #7 . ↩

I heard from R. Shneur Zal­man Schneer­son, the Rav of Homil, in the name of his fa­ther, R. Shalom Ber of Ret­z­itza, what he heard from his fa­ther, the Ma­haril [R. Yehu­dah Leib, the Tzemach Tzedek’s son]:

There were sev­enty rab­bonim at the “Great Shavuos, ” and the oc­ca­sion be­came known as the “Fes­ti­val of Mat­zos” (since a rov is called a Mot”z [ab­bre­vi­a­tion for Moreh Tzedek: a teacher of right­eous­ness ]).

He lis­tened to how the Tzemach Tzedek re­cited Tehillim: I am a worm, not a man; the scorn of men, the dis­grace of peo­ple³ — and the Ma­haril im­i­tated his fa­ther’s ni­gun.

3. Tehillim 22:7. ↩