By Rabbi Yaakov Bitton, Shliach to Sarcelles, France
Prepared for publication by Nosson Avrohom
In a sicha of Motzaei the first days of Sukkos the Rebbe spoke about the need for simcha bursting bounds and how even the streets needed to become a “private domain.” Right after this sicha, we four Frenchies, led by R’ Zushe, went out and followed him down Kingston Avenue without knowing what would happen next. When we reached the corner of Montgomery, he found a large garbage can and dragged it into the middle of the street. We put him up there and began to dance around him as he urged us on with his waving hands. That was the beginning.
THE REBBE’S CHILD
Every Chassid knows that each moment with the Rebbe throughout Tishrei is an elevated experience which provides ‘fuel’ for the Chassidishe chayus for the rest of the year. I personally had the privilege of being with the Rebbe for Tishrei many times, and I divide these visits into two – the Tishreis before I became a shliach and those afterward.
My first visit to the Rebbe took place on 20 Elul 5736/1976. Later, I would go every Tishrei as a shliach. I would go with groups of young people from my place of shlichus, Sarcelles, and be with them throughout their stay. Every year this was a special experience. Every moment is engraved deeply within me.
I grew up in Morocco. Our family was very close with the shluchim there, R’ Shlomo Matusof, R’ Leibel Raskin, and R’ Sholom Edelman. From the age of twelve I would learn Chitas with R’ Matusof’s children. I was actively involved in all their activities until I became a part of the family. My father was a big mekurav of the shluchim and under his influence I became close with the family of shluchim.
That year, 5736, R’ Matusof married off one of his children and being only sixteen years old, I accepted the offer to join them on their trip to New York. This was before Tishrei and the plan was to stay with the Rebbe until after Simchas Torah. Until then, I had only heard great things about the Rebbe and I was happy for the opportunity to see him with my own eyes.
Of my entire family, I had the biggest connection with the Rebbe and with Chassidus, perhaps because my birth was a miracle of the Rebbe. When my mother was pregnant with me, the doctors discovered that she had serious cardiac problems and they urged her to end the pregnancy. They warned her that the continuation of the pregnancy would put not only the fetus but her own life in danger.
My father brokenheartedly spoke to R’ Matusof who of course told him to write to the Rebbe. My father sent a letter and asked for a bracha. In the response he received, the Rebbe wrote: Check t’fillin and mezuzos, refua shleima.
This answer gave my parents hope. They quickly sent the mezuzos to be checked. It turned out that in one of the mezuzos, the word for “your heart” was erased. Of course, they replaced the mezuza. Needless to say, I was born healthy. I heard this story from my parents many times as I grew up, which strengthened my feeling of hiskashrus to the Rebbe.
HOW DID THE REBBE REACT WHEN SOMEONE REQUESTED CHOCHMA?
As someone who grew up in a house and environment of Sephardim, I found it hard to accept the parallel that Chassidim make between the Rebbe and Moshe Rabbeinu. A big tzaddik he certainly was, but not the Moshe Rabbeinu of the generation. I remember thinking about this throughout the flight to the Rebbe, in the company of the Matusof family who were suffused with hiskashrus. An inner voice wanted to diminish my excitement. This issue became irrelevant as soon as I saw the Rebbe for the first time in my life, at Maariv.
As soon as the Rebbe walked in, he fixed his gaze upon me. Those moments turned me into a Chassid. Not just the type who says Chitas, but one who tries to do what he can to please the Rebbe. What strengthened my resolve was the electric atmosphere in 770 that Tishrei, pure simcha, nonstop dancing, mutual help and concern for others. The sight of R’ Zushe Partisan standing there and waving his hand with circles of Chassidim moving around him, is one I will always remember.
On Rosh HaShana, the davening with the Rebbe ended at about three, and we went to the dining room. We waited there a long time until the doors opened, but who paid attention to food that Tishrei? The sight of the Rebbe blowing t’kios was so powerful that we felt we were floating.
Throughout the davening on Rosh HaShana, it was hard to hold the machzor and concentrate due to the crowding. However, the moment the t’kios began, there fell a deep silence and people stopped moving. Recalling the feeling I experienced then makes me “freeze” to this day.
This elevated feeling stayed with me throughout the month, even when the seriousness of the beginning of the month turned into simcha as soon as Yom Kippur was over, continuing through Sukkos and Simchas Torah.
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In the 80’s, I brought a group of young people to the Rebbe and took them for lekach. One of them asked the Rebbe for some chochma. I’ll never forget how the Rebbe smiled broadly and gave him two pieces of cake and blessed him with bina and daas as well.
In 5751, I came with two donors, young fellows who donated a floor of a building for a daycare center that we planned on opening in memory of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. We had made a model of the building and we passed by the Rebbe for dollars in order to present it to him and receive his bracha. I went first and I gave the Rebbe the model, and then I introduced the donors. The Rebbe inclined his head towards me as someone who does not hear well and asked whether it would be a Beis Chabad. I said it would be a daycare center and that the Chabad house was located elsewhere.
The Rebbe seemingly did not hear what I said, and he asked whether it would be a school. I said once again that the plan was only for a daycare center. The Rebbe gave his bracha and we left. I was utterly befuddled. Nothing like this had ever happened to me.
It was only several years later that the Rebbe’s surprising questions were understood. In the building there are several floors and we had bought the middle floor for the daycare center. Five years later, the tenants who lived on the first floor had left and we decided to buy it and to move the Chabad house activities there from the crowded old location. Another few years went by and all the tenants who lived on higher floors left too. We bought those floors and transferred our school there. When the move, with 350 students, had been completed, I suddenly realized how far-reaching the Rebbe’s vision was.
The first sicha that I heard from the Rebbe, when I came in 5736, was a talk to the menahalim of mosdos. The Rebbe asked that at least 10% of their students be those who don’t pay tuition. I did not imagine that the first sicha would later be relevant to me. I was a kid at the time. Today, as a menahel of a big school where there are students who don’t pay, I am always reminded of that sicha. I’ve been advised to close down some classes, but the Rebbe’s words remain with me and we always manage with the Rebbe’s kochos.
SPECIAL DAY FOR BACHURIM FROM MOROCCO
In Tishrei 5741/1980, I was in Crown Heights with a good friend from Morocco, Sholom Elharar. During the hakafos, we got a spot in the same pyramid, with him up above while I stood below. At some point, when his hold weakened, he fell and shattered his hand. He was taken out by a Hatzolah volunteer and was brought to the hospital.
Every day, we went to visit him and to bring him kosher food. He spent two weeks in the hospital, and every evening, when we came back after visiting him, R’ Leibel Groner came over to us and asked how he was. He told us that he was asking on the Rebbe’s behalf and wanted to know every detail. That is what happened each day until he was released.
We were a group of young people, mekuravim of Chabad in Morocco and we felt that the Rebbe gave us special treatment. A few years earlier, in Tishrei 5737, I received Kos shel bracha and asked for a bottle of mashke for the U’faratzta work being done with the boys in Morocco. It was noisy and the singing was loud and the Rebbe asked, “Ah?”
I repeated why I wanted a bottle. The Rebbe smiled broadly and said in French, “Great and outstanding success,” and he gave me a bottle.
When I returned to Morocco, I felt energized. I went around to places where Jews congregated and put t’fillin on with them. I would not return home until I put t’fillin on with at least 100 people. I would also go into a certain gentile bar where I knew Jews went. Since I spoke fluent Arabic, the owner liked me, and he himself would announce that he was stopping all the gaming until all the Jews finished putting on t’fillin.
Every year there were moving “Tishrei moments” with the Rebbe: sichos, Napoleon’s March, Simchas Torah, the t’kios, the dancing on Simchas Torah. I’ll never forget 5748 and how the Rebbe raised the Torah in the direction of the pyramids, and enormous joy erupted in 770, the likes of which was never experienced before.
Speaking of simcha, I was one of the first to start dancing in the street at Simchas Beis HaShoeiva, together with R’ Zushe Partisan. In a sicha of Motzaei the first days of Sukkos the Rebbe spoke about the need for simcha bursting bounds and how even the streets needed to become a “private domain.” Right after this sicha, we four Frenchies, led by R’ Zushe, went out and followed him down Kingston Avenue without knowing what would happen next. When we reached the corner of Montgomery, he found a big garbage can and dragged it into the middle of the street. We put him up there and began to dance around him as he urged us on with his waving hands. That was the beginning. Every few minutes, more and more people joined us and circles were formed. The street was closed to traffic until morning.
In Tishrei 5744, I experienced a miracle. Ten of us bachurim from France went on Tahalucha to a distant neighborhood, a two hour walk away, to bring joy to Jews in a few shuls there. Before we left, we passed 770. The Rebbe came out of his room and escorted us with encouraging motions and his gaze. I saw that the Rebbe was murmuring something. I wondered why the Rebbe bothered escorting everyone, when surely he had other important things to do.
Late that evening, we headed back to Crown Heights and we passed by neighborhoods that were all black. Many of them congregated in front of the houses in large groups. It was scary and we prayed that we would make it back peacefully. No policemen were in sight and some black youth started up with us. We ignored them and continued walking briskly, wanting to get back in time for the hakafos. We said T’hillim and reviewed maamarim.
On a corner stood a tall black fellow who tripped every bachur who passed by. He stuck out his foot for the first one who fell, got up, cleaned himself off, and continued walking. He tripped up the next bachur who also got up and continued walking. I was going to be the third one he tripped. He stuck out his long leg but, being a former soccer player, I lifted his leg which made him fall over. He fell hard and even worse, he was embarrassed. He yelled to his friends who gathered around us in seconds.
They looked menacing and we were terrified. We didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t run because they were faster than us and surrounded us. We prayed that we would extricate ourselves and then, two police cars drove up. The policemen quickly assessed the situation and approached the black men. They moved them away from us and escorted us until we reached 770.
When I entered 770, I remembered what I had thought when I left on Tahalucha about why the Rebbe had escorted us. I felt I had the answer.