770 life

Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the week. Sponsorship still available. The Hebrew year 5727 (1966/7) was a special year in numerous ways. Yud-Tes Kislev was a special year (I don’t remember why) and the bochurim requested (and would not accept refusal) from the hanhola permission to go to the Rebbe’s farbrengen in New York. [This was before there was such a concept as “the hook-ups” – in the 1970’s, thanks to the efforts of Rabbis Chaim Boruch Halberstam, Yonason Hackner, & Sholom Ber Eber, the Rebbe’s farbrengen’s were carried live, via telephone hook-up, to all Lubavitch Communities around the world. This was technological communications way ahead of its time, and eventually led to live cable hook up of the farbrengens in the 1980s. Interesting to note: the forerunner to the telephone hook-ups, was really the brainchild of the bochurim of Montreal in 1967 or 1968. There were a few bochurim who were going in for some of the farbrengens and those of us that stayed in Montreal chipped in to pay for the long distance charges. In those years there were two pay phones just outside the main doors into the shul. The bochurim who went into New York took turns standing by the pay phones in 770. That bochur whose turn it was, would hold the phone receiver by the open door so that we could hear the Rebbe speak. If we got cut off (which happened several times through the night) we would call the second pay phone to tell them hang up the first pay phone so we could call back. A very unsophisticated (and nerve-racking) method, but hey it worked. Chaim Boruch Halberstam later heard about what was being done by the yeshiva bochurim in Montreal and got official permission to set up a second microphone on the Rebbe’s table hooked up to a telephone system etc. Thus was born the WLCC whom we have to thank for all the sichos & maamorim being broadcast live world-wide.] When the hanhola was initially asked by the bochurim to go to the Rebbe for Yud-Tes Kislev, they refused permission. The bochurim would not accept the denied permission and repeatedly nudged the hanhola, until at literally the last minute the hanhola gave permission with the following stipulations: 1. Each bochur who wanted to go had to chazer a ma’amor by heart; 2. They could only go by charter bus that would leave from the yeshiva the night before the farbrengen and return right after the farbrengen from 770; and 3. The bus could not be arranged during seder of learning. The hanhola for sure, and most of the bochurim didn’t believe that the conditions could be met. However, some of the bochurim, who knew that I loved operating on a challenge, talked me into “going for it.” I agreed to work at it if the bochurim would give me the complete money for their trip during the 1 hour lunch break that day. B”H, miraculously we were able to accomplish it on such short notice and to the complete surprise of the hanhola. [The conditions were set before shachris, during breakfast I found a Jewish bus company that gave me a very good price on condition that I pre-pay that night. Lunch hour the whole money was collected, at supper I brought it to the owner of the company’s home and the bus left the yeshiva the next night. All conditions met and feat accomplished.] Having succeeded in arranging the Yud-Tes Kislev Bus without interrupting seder, the hanhola gave me the job to arrange the buses for the annual Yud Shvat trip to the Rebbe. And now for the continuation of the story I began last week… Expecting an exceptional Purim farbrengen after what had happened the Purim before, the hanhola knew they would not be able to deny the bochurim permission to go to 770 for Purim, so once again they set conditions: 1. Each bochur had to prepare by heart something in nigleh and something in chassidus; 2. They could only go by chartered bus; and 3. Since Purim (that year) was Sunday, the bus was to leave the yeshiva Thursday night and return Sunday night right after the farbrengen from 770. Once again, I was turned to, to make the arrangements, and B”H I was able to do so. Rabbi Yitzchok Mann, (a shliach in Oak Park, Michigan,) was at that time a bochur learning in 770. His parents lived in Montreal. Since they were not Chabad and he wanted to lead a Chabad lifestyle, he would go home (to his parents) for Purim so that he could spend Pesach in 770. Imagine his surprise and disappointment when that year he comes to Montreal and learns that the whole yeshiva is clearing out and going to 770 for Shabbos and Purim. He complained and argued with us that we shouldn’t be leaving the city devoid of bochurim and the simchas Purim. Especially this year, when Purim is Sunday, for sure the Rebbe would expect us to take advantage of public schools being closed so that we can make a Purim rally for Jewish children who otherwise had no connection to their heritage. Although most of the bochurim ignored him, there were some of us who took his words seriously. So [Later to become shluchim and Rabbis] Mendel Lipskar (shliach in South Africa,) Motti Berger a”h (Ottowa, Canada,) Moshe Yosef Engel yblt”a (Long Beach, California,) Leima Levitan a”h (Miami Beach, Florida,) Dovid Golowinsky yblt”a (Miami Beach, Florida,) Chonye Geisinsky (Brooklyn, NY,) Sender Munitz (Miami Beach, Florida,) Yerachmiel Stillman (L.A., CA,) and myself (Simferopol, Crimea) decided to stay and make a Purim rally for Public School children. At the last minute, just before the buses left we felt we needed the help of Dovid Vail (Brooklyn, NY) and one other of the bochurim mentioned above (don’t remember which one,) and convinced them to stay as well. The decision to stay was made by most of us on Wednesday evening, so we quickly sat down to plan out the rally. Knowing that all the rest of the bochurim were leaving Thursday evening, and knowing that we needed them to spread out to distribute the flyers to all the public schools in Montreal, our first priority was making a flyer. We finished preparing it at 2:00 a.m. but we had to get it printed up in time so that the bochurim could be at the public schools at 8:00 a.m. So we called Reb Itche Gneiwish, a married yunger man who had a printing shop (being bochurim it didn’t even dawn on us the chutzpa of waking him and his wife at 2:00 a.m.) Reb Itche (and his wife – may Hashem reward them for their response with long and healthy years with only nachas and simchos) told us to meet him at his printing place in 40 minutes and spent the rest of the night in preparing the flyers. That morning was a bitter cold day, below zero degree weather, and we all went out to distribute the flyers. I found it difficult to be able to hand out the brochures quickly enough, so I took off the glove from my right hand. For a while it was hurting, but then I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t realize that was not a good sign. My fingers were frostbitten. It was rachmei Hashem, that when I got back to Yeshiva Reb Volf Greenglass noticed that my fingers were totally without blood and grabbed me, pulled me outside and grabbed snow and rubbed my hands until I got feeling back into my fingers. He then ordered me to immediately go to the Emergency Room. The doctor told me that had Reb Volf not immediately rubbed my fingers in snow, in all probability I would have ch”v lost at least some of my fingers. The flyers themselves, were interesting. Due to the urgency of getting them out, we put them together with the first thoughts that fell into our heads. They actually came out very well. It was triangular in shape, to look like a hamantash and the words on the front were, “The Three Stooges Starring in Purim 67.” [Every 4 to 6 years there would be a World’s Fair in different places around the world. In 64 the world’s fair was in New York and 67 it was in Montréal. In Montréal it was called the Expo 67. Throughout the year from the end of 66 until the opening of the Expo 67, in April, all over the city in Montréal there were signs and advertisements preparing the city for this Expo. Thus the name on the brochure was Purim 67.] Having advertised the Three Stooges, we then planned as part of the program a play starring the Three Stooges. I am not going to go into the details of the play, but the general plot was that a mad scientist convinces them to work for him. He then tricks them into entering a time machine, locks the door and sends them back into the past. They arrive in the forest on the outskirts of the city of Shushan where they find Mordechai sitting and crying. After they convince him that they want to help him, he tells them about the evil decree that Achashveiros made against the Jews. The Three Stooges decide to somehow get into the palace and try to overturn this decree. Of course, throughout the play the Three Stooges – played by Dovid Golowinsky as Moe; Chonye Geisinsky as Larry; and Leime Levitin a”h as Curly – were doing a great job of doing their famed slapstick comedy. The play was interspersed throughout with bits and pieces of other television shows and favorite non-Jewish children fables and stories. As the plot continued, Achashveirosh, the foolish king, believed that all his successes in war were thanks to a genie, (whom he never yet met,) living in a “magic” lamp that he always carried around. However, one day, being in a rush (to watch his favorite television show – the Flintstones,) he forgets his magic lamp in the banquet hall. In the meantime the Three Stooges manage to get into the banquet hall and Curly sees the king’s “magic” lamp and picks it up. Just then, the king (during an intermission of the Flintstones) runs into the banquet hall to retrieve his lamp. When he sees a stranger (Curly) holding his lamp he assumes that he is the Genie whom he has always believed in, yet has never yet had the “honor” of meeting in person. The king immediately bows to Curly and professes total loyalty. During their interaction, Curly brings up the terrible decree made against the Jews. Achashveirosh claims ignorance, saying that he leaves all communal dealings to his Ministers and that his Senior Minister Haman would be in charge of such matters. The Three Stooges then go off looking for Haman. They find him in the market place giving a hateful anti-Semitic speech against the Jews blaming them for all the disasters in the Persian Empire from “no fish in the seas because of all the gefilte fish they eat, failing economy because of all their holidays they celebrate – such as the upcoming Lag B’Omer Parade on the Sunday of Lag B’Omer in May, - and the wasteful money on the upcoming Expo ’67….” When the Stooges confront Haman about his nastiness, Haman accuses them of being Jewish. He has the mob attack them and tie them up. He then announces that he plans to kill them. Suddenly bugles are blowing announcing the entrance of the king. The king enters and sees Curly, his Genie, tied up and asks him who did it. Curly says Haman, and the king has Haman grabbed by the guards, and when he asks Curly what punishment to administer? They go into the famous Three Stooges “huddle” with banging heads, and sing out, “hang him, hang him, hang him!” Although we made terrific sound-effects for the entire play, we didn’t have the man-power to make the scenery for the play, nor manpower to make 300 shallach manos packets (with the hope that despite the late planning we would still have a nice turnout,) and for that matter no idea where would we get the madrichim and madrichos for such a rally? When word went out that we were planning a Purim Rally, The Anash came forth, with their wifes and daughters and offered whatever help we needed. The girls made awesome scenery for the play; the women made the 300 shallach manos we requested; and the men, women and daughters were the madrichim and madrichos. The Rally was called for 10:00 a.m. Sunday on Purim morning. At 9:45 we looked out the door to see how many kids were gathering, there were 6 kids! We were devastated. All that effort for 6 kids? Some were of the opinion to cancel and forget it. However, most of us said, “Hey it’s Purim, let’s say l’chaim and act as if there are hundreds of kids and just have fun!” We announced that we would be opening the doors 15 minutes late at 10:15, hoping that we would have some more kids. At 10:15 we opened the doors and to everyone’s amazement kids and adults began streaming in, and in, and in. The madrichim ran to get more chairs, while the madrichos rushed to repack the shallach manos packets, albeit smaller ones. There actually turned out to be 600 kids. The program was a tremendous success, way beyond our wildest dreams. [Of course, before the play, the megilla was read and the “real” story of Purim was told, to make sure that the Three Stooges spoof wouldn’t be taken as the true story.] And lekovod Purim, there were miracles galore. Three immediate anecdotes: There was one child who nebach had been seriously ill and housebound for almost a year. His doctor agreed to let him out of the house, that day for the first time, to go to the rally. However, concerned that he may ch”v have a relapse, the doctor came with him to the rally. After the rally, he came running over to us, with tears in his eyes, and told us that the play was so hilarious and the boy was laughing so hard that it did more for his cure than anything the doctor and medications were able to do to date; there was a divorced woman who in her past had a bad experience with “frumkeit.” Still she was very close with Mrs. Feigelstock, (wife of the principal of the yeshiva.) She had a son who she refused to send to yeshiva, despite Mrs. Feigelstock’s and others’ efforts to get her to do so. Her argument, “I don’t want him to be ‘farchenyaked’ like yeshiva boys are.” She brought her son to the rally and after the play she turned to Mrs. Feigelstock and said, “if the bochurim in yeshiva can put on a play like this, there is no way that they are ‘farchenyaked.’ Right then and there she signed him up in the yeshiva; there was a Hollywood producer who was visiting his sister in Montreal and she asked him to take her son to the rally, which he did. Right after the play, he ran up to the stage and asked us who wrote the play? When we told him that we did, he gave us his card and said if we ever want a job in Hollywood, look him up. There was another “major” miracle that happened for us, as I will now relate. When we had decided to stay in Montreal to make the rally, we had no intention of missing the Sunday evening farbrengen. The plan was that we would make the rally in the morning so that in the afternoon we would be able take a flight to NY (something, that in those days were unheard of since the expenses were prohibitive,) and arrive in 770 in time for the farbrengen. How did we plan to pay for it? It was the annual custom of all the bachurim in the Yeshiva to go out, to the chareidi communities, on the eve of Purim, after megilla reading, and put on small Purm skits, and ask them for donations for maos chittim which would pay for the Shmura Matzos that the yeshiva would give out before Pesach. Of course, this year there were no bochurim in town to raise this money. We, therefore, felt that if those of us that stayed would push ourselves to also go around raising the money for maos chittim, that it would be acceptable for us to take a slight percentage of the money to pay for our plane tickets, since the yeshiva was still making money for maos chittim that they would not have otherwise had. Unfortunately, Friday morning, Anash found out about our plans and caused a big outcry that “how dare we take money collected for maos chittim for personal gain?” So we had to scrap that plan, and it looked like we would somehow have to pay for the tickets out of our own pockets. Meanwhile, Thursday night (before the outcry) just before the buses left with the bochurim to 770, we managed to convince Dovid Vail and one of the other bochurim, to stay with us to help with the rally. [Dovid Vail was the perfect guy to play the parts of the mad scientist and King Achashveirosh in the play.] They agreed to stay if we would guarantee a seat on the flight and that it would be at no cost to them. We did. It turned out to be a “life saving” move for all of us. It was too late that night to call the Air Canada office (the company that we had our reservations on) so we called the next morning (Friday.) We told the agent that we want to add two more people to our reservations. To our shock, they said we don’t have any reservations. We exclaimed, “What are you talking about? We made 7 reservations previously and now we need two more!” The Agent explained that the day before, one of the passengers called and cancelled the reservations. His name was Stillman. We immediately turned to him and asked is this true? It seems that what happened was that in our planning the rally and afterwards having to run to the airport for our flight, we ordered kosher airline meals so that on the flight we could have our Purim Seudah. Well Stillman, without saying anything to anyone, felt that perhaps the kosher meals wouldn’t be to our standard, so he called the airline and cancelled the meals. The airlines understood that he was cancelling the reservations. So we explained that they made the mistake of cancelling the reservations and they need to put us back on. The agent apologized for the misunderstanding, but explained that it was a holiday weekend and as soon as the seats were cancelled they were sold and there were no more seats to be had. We spoke to a supervisor who also claimed that there was nothing that could be done. Knowing that we were doing this rally totally lishma, we knew that we had to keep trying and for sure Hashem would help us. Since we still had plenty of work to do for the rally, we turned to Mendel Lipskar (the best speaker amongst us) and told him, “we don’t need your help for the rally, you have one job, get us seats on a flight to NY, for Sunday!” He called one supervisor after another at Air Canada, explaining that their agents messed up, and that we are a group of Rabbinical students that need to be at this special convention in NY on Sunday night. Each Supervisor sounded like they were truly regretful for the mix-up but there was nothing they could do. However, Hashem was with us, and one of the supervisors, in frustration over our refusing to accept a negative answer said only the owner of the Air Line (Air Canada) himself might be able to help. And so Lipskar said, “so give me his private home number” (since it was a holiday weekend.) Nobody can explain why and how this supervisor actually gave him the private home number. Lipskar called the owner and explained the whole story, and about the rally, and how we stayed but needed to get to 770 Sunday evening. The owner of the company was so moved that he put a special 30 seater plane on the roster, for the time we needed it, especially for us. He probably was hoping he could sell another 20 seats to cover the costs, but there was only two other passengers on the plane besides us. The owner asked if we wanted kosher meals, to which we all answered in one voice, “NO WAY, THANK YOU!” As soon as the rally was over, we ran next door to the home of Reb Peretz Motchkin a”h, and asked if we could just wash and be yotzei seudas Purim, bentched and then ran to catch our special plane. When we got to NY we squeezed into 2 taxis to get to the farbrengen. One taxi got there in time, our driver however, took us on a roundabout way making us come 15 minutes late. To our surprise, exactly when we entered into the farbrengen, the Rebbe, who always came exactly on time, also walked in. We all felt that the Rebbe was waiting for us. Since none of us had slept for three days, and we knew how upset the Rebbe would get when anyone would sleep at a farbrengen, we all stood. However, we were too tired and one point we fell asleep standing leaning on each other’s shoulders. While we were thus sleeping, I suddenly awoke and saw the Rebbe looking straight at us, embarrassed, I poked the other guys awake, but when we looked at the Rebbe we saw a broad smile on the Rebbe’s face as if he was saying, I have no problem with you guys sleeping. Right after the farbrengen we gave in a report to the Rebbe of the rally, (which we had prepared on the plane,) for which the next day we received from him a broad thank you. Please feel free to share this story Support Rabbi Lipszyc's work by Donating at https://chabadcrimeaorg.clhosting.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/2511910/jewish/Crisis-Relief/lang/en or sending checks to: Chabad of Crimea World Friends, 1601 Union St, Brooklyn, NY 11213 To Sponsor the story of the week, Contact Mendy at 513-456-7595