A LUBAVITCHER SUKKOS IN MODERN AMERICA

PART I

Just two years had passed since the Rebbe Rayatz left Russia after a long saga of severe persecution directed at him, his family, his mekuravim and Chassidim. With Hashem’s mercy he had reached safer countries but even there he did not allow himself to rest, despite having many stormy years of communal work behind him.

It was 1930 when the Rebbe Rayatz made a special trip to visit the United States in order to strengthen the Jews there. The Rebbe ignored his health problems and limited strength. He sailed the Atlantic in order to breathe a spirit of pure faith into American Jewry of the same type as the European “brand.”

The Rebbe spent the Yomim Nora’im in Brownsville, a New York neighborhood with about ten Nusach Ari shuls. The organizers chose the Anshei Lubavitch shul on 195 Watkins Street as the Rebbe’s shul. This shul was in a large and impressive building.

PART II

Even before the Rebbe arrived in the US, he had ordered Calabrian esrogim from an esrog dealer in Italy named Mr. Crea of Genoa. The Rebbe ordered ten esrogim and ten lulavim, being particular to say the bracha on a Calabrian esrog from Italy as was his ancestors’ custom.

The esrogim and lulavim arrived on time at the address of the chairman of Agudas Chassidei Chabad, R’ Yisroel Jacobson. They arrived along with another thirty or so esrogim and lulavim, which R’ Jacobson himself had ordered as he supported himself by selling them to Jews in New York.

The Rebbe spent Sukkos in Crown Heights, later to become Lubavitch headquarters. At that time, it was a modern neighborhood and the few religious Jews who lived there were embarrassed to walk in the street while holding esrogim and lulavim “because it wasn’t nice.”

After a careful examination, R’ Jacobson saw that among the esrogim he had received there were a few outstanding ones. He immediately said that if he had a nicer esrog than the one the Rebbe received, he was willing to give his nicer one to the Rebbe as a gift.

In between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, R’ Chatshe Feigin, the Rebbe’s secretary, told R’ Jacobson that the Rebbe heard he had a beautiful esrog and wanted to see it. R’ Jacobson appeared at the appointed time and carefully placed the esrog on the table in front of the Rebbe.

The Rebbe’s face lit up. Indeed, it was a magnificent esrog in size and appearance and unusually unblemished. “This is not at all a galus esrog! Where did you get this esrog from?”

R’ Jacobson said, “The dealer Mr. Crea sent me three crates with each one containing ten esrogim. Besides that, he sent another crate for the Rebbe, as per the order.”

The Rebbe rotated the esrog in his hand and gazed at it admiringly. “My esrogim are nice too but how do they compare to yours …”

With a slight nod, the Rebbe motioned to his secretary to leave the room and then he said to his devoted Chassid, “How much does this esrog cost?”

“G-d forbid!” exclaimed R’ Jacobson tremblingly. “I only ask that the Rebbe allow me to say a bracha on this esrog that I give him as a gift. Rebbe, it is m’shelachem [i.e. under your ownership] without any question.”

The Rebbe said, “But you could sell it to your balabatim!”

Said R’ Jacobson, “I have enough for them and I have left over.”

Said the Rebbe, “You could get a good price for it from a balabus!”

Said R’ Jacobson, “I have nice esrogim for the balabatim of our community too.”

The Rebbe called for his secretary to come in and asked him to bring him his hat and then gave R’ Jacobson a heartfelt bracha. Then the Rebbe asked about lulavim which grow in America, since the lulavim he had received at the beginning of Elul were already withered.

R’ Jacobson told him that nice lulavim grew in California and Arizona. The Rebbe asked that a lulav be brought for him and said which hiddurim he was particular about, “a middle one,” meaning that the spine should be in the center and not on the side, “without locks,” meaning that some lulavim have leaves that are not fully connected at the point that they come out of the spine, “not a thin one, a straight one, without any ‘buttons’ (curved tips), and on the other side there should be moch (the brown webbing that grows on the back).”

The Rebbe looked at the new esrog again and again and said he wanted to cut a little of the uketz (stem) because it was big and a little crooked. The secretary asked the Chassid and shochet R’ Avrohom Gordon to bring his sh’chita knife to the Rebbe.

Cutting it was no simple task, for one wrong move and the entire stem could fall off and invalidate the beautiful esrog. The Rebbe spent a long time turning the esrog from side to side, deciding how to hold the esrog in the best way so that the stem would not come off as it was trimmed. R’ Avrohom the shochet took the esrog, placed the stem on the edge of the table and pressed down with the knife until it cut through cleanly.

***

Nevertheless, the Rebbe paid what he “owed” to R’ Jacobson in the best possible way. R’ Jacobson’s oldest daughter, Chaya Sara, was nine years old at the time. She had immigrated with her father to the US from Russia. Back in Russia, she was walking down the street and because of a fire she became very frightened and one eye began to cross.

After the Rebbe’s approval, R’ Jacobson brought her to the Rebbe to receive his bracha. It was the first day of Chol HaMoed Sukkos at twilight. The Rebbe asked her in a fatherly tone, “Look into my eyes.”

R’ Yisroel became emotional and excitedly told his daughter to look at the Rebbe.

The Rebbe told the excited father, “She looks straight.”

From then on, her eyes returned to normal.

“Mehudar” eyes for a mehudar esrog.

PART III

The Rebbe’s being in America during the Yomim Tovim was a kind of galus for him, being far from the Lubavitcher court, far from the authentic Chassidishe atmosphere that he was used to. The Rebbe’s location did not add to his enjoyment either, to say the least. “They say that the apartment we are in now [184 Brooklyn Avenue] is in an area of Notzrim (Christian gentiles), and therefore there will be less people,” the Rebbe noted in his diary. He added however that “During the days between Yom Kippur and Sukkos, there could be seen on the streets that there is a Jewish element present.”

A few days before Yom Tov, R’ Jacobson asked a few people in his shul to help build a sukka for the Rebbe. Three of them – the brothers R’ Tzvi Hirsch and R’ Hillel Dworkin and Yosef Honkim volunteered. They were carpenters and knew what to do.

They built two sukkas, one big one for the large crowd that would visit the Rebbe during Sukkos and a small sukka on the roof of the first floor from where there was an entrance to the second floor.

They knew that a sukka for the Rebbe is unlike other sukkas and they did their work enthusiastically, desiring to please the Rebbe. Yosef Honkim worked hard on the small details like taking exact measurements so that the Rebbe would not have to lift his foot too much when he wanted to enter the sukka from his room.

The Chassid, R’ Avrohom Plotkin also came to help build. One of the people there expressed surprise, saying, “you aren’t a carpenter,” to which he jokingly replied, “So, I will be the one to hand them things.” When he had to buy nails he ran to buy them at his own expense and he also bought a big bag of fruit for the workers.

In his diary, the Rebbe mentions the large sukka that was built, where he said maamarei Chassidus to the public. “In the yard is a very large sukka like the T’mimim had in Lubavitch,” he wrote.

Farbrengens were also held in this sukka on Yom Tov and Chol HaMoed. Hundreds of people, old Chassidim, famous rich men, doctors, lawyers, bank executives, and other guests came from New York and other cities, some of them distant, in order to be with the Rebbe for the Simchas Beis HaShoeiva. Among those present were also fifty or so rabbanim from various communities.

During the Simchas Beis HaShoeiva, the Rebbe spoke several times on the theme of the special quality of the Jewish people, our uniqueness and unity. The crowd filled the sukka with some sitting and most standing on benches, and they eagerly listened to every word.

“The crowd was in an elevated Chassidishe mood.”

The atmosphere in the sukka was one of unusual simcha, the kind of simcha that one can obtain only in the Rebbe’s presence. Between sichos the crowd burst into powerful Chassidic song. The presence of the great chazan R’ Yossele Rosenblatt contributed much to the singing with his sweet and powerful voice. The Rebbe noticed his presence and even wrote a few words about him in his diary, “Here in America and Canada they make a huge tumult about him and he came to sing, and indeed he sang to the delight of the crowd.”

PART IV

On Simchas Torah the hakafos took place with tremendous joy until dawn and only then did they eat the nighttime Yom Tov meal. The joy broke through all boundaries of time, and Simchas Torah day too, the Rebbe and the Chassidim washed for the daytime meal only minutes before sunset.

At night, many more guests arrived who had come on trips that took one hour, two hours or more. Some Jewish journalists came to cover the Lubavitcher Simchas Torah in modern America which was historic. They began writing down what they heard from the Rebbe during the sicha even though they had a very hard time understanding the sichos. The Rebbe’s secretary, R’ Chaim Lieberman, stood next to the Rebbe and putting a paper on the back of one of the people he wrote down the content of the sicha. This was preserved for posterity in the later published volumes of sichos.

The Rebbe concluded his description of that Chassidic Simchas Torah in modern America in a letter, “I bentched at 11:30 and afterward said a few words of blessing and with mighty song and joy which burst forth from the hearts, ‘Ki B’simcha Seitzei’u,’ I left for my room and Yom Tov ended. The crowd sang and danced.”

From letters of the Rebbe Rayatz that were first published in Beis Moshiach and from the memoirs of R’ Yisroel Jacobson, chapter 28