Erev Gimmel Tammuz, when questions arise, I visited the mashpia, R’ Zushe Posner, one of the veteran shluchim that the Rebbe sent to Eretz Yisroel, to hear answers. R’ Zushe makes no concessions to anyone and he demands living with the Rebbe not for ourselves, but for the Rebbe!
An interview with R’ Zushe Posner is an experience. He doesn’t just kindly answer your questions; he has his unique terminology characterized by extreme bluntness blended with pointed sarcasm. Whether it was your question or not, he draws you along with him into the depths of his heart which hurts with longing for the Rebbe. He hopes I will succeed in using my powers of influence and my writing abilities to express his pain.
He referred to the exact number of years, months, days, and hours since Gimmel Tammuz. What does Gimmel Tammuz 5754 mean to him? G-d forbid, not “tzimtzum k’pshuto,” i.e. histalkus, for that did not happen. “Elokus is constantly alive.” On the other hand, Gimmel Tammuz is happening right now! He does not need to imagine that this morning the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed in his day, he feels it in his flesh, blood, and soul. He tries to cry out, to farbreng, cry, shake up whoever is willing or not willing to listen. This concealment cannot go on.
He cried out and still cries out with the same words, for fifty years already. Bachurim who learned with him in the yeshivos in Lud and B’nei Brak in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, etc. hear precisely the same words from him.
He wants people to care about the Rebbe, that the Rebbe’s situation should be something we care about, that we should understand that we are here for the Rebbe and the Rebbe does not need us, but he wants us; that we put our heads into a maamer and not just the maamer into our heads. To him, the Rebbe is “Rebbe” and not “G-d forbid” some tzaddik, kadosh and tahor. You don’t understand? That is also an integral part of R’ Zushe’s multifaceted personality. “A Lubavitcher knows that he does not understand everything and he does not have the answer to every question.” What is R’ Zushe himself? “A Lubavitcher, not a Chabadnik.”
I will confess. When I finished the interview, I went to a close friend, a close mushpa of R’ Zushe who spent hours at farbrengens with him, for another farbrengen about the topics of the recorded farbrengen. I wanted to make sure that I correctly understood what R’ Zushe had said and that I would be able to convey it properly.
THE REBBE SUFFERS. FOR US!
I try to ask him my opening question: Let’s go back to Sunday, Gimmel Tammuz 5754 …
R’ Zushe cuts me off and says, “Gimmel Tammuz? Which Gimmel Tammuz? You can go further back to Gimmel Tammuz 1927, the Chag Ha’Geula of the Rebbe Rayatz, or further back to the sun that stood still in Givon in the time of Yehoshua Bin Nun.”
Really, R’ Zushe. When we say Gimmel Tammuz today, we all know what we mean, even without saying it explicitly, that we are talking about 5754.
Well, to R’ Zushe nothing is obvious. “After so many years [and he enumerated the years, months and days], for someone younger than that, Gimmel Tammuz 5687 or Gimmel Tammuz 5754 or Gimmel Tammuz in Yehoshua’s times are the same thing. And that goes for most of the bachurim in yeshivos today.”
Okay, I will reword my question. I personally remember that day. Gimmel Tammuz 5754. The news shocked the Chassidim. You were a mashgiach in the yeshiva in Lud and an askan with many connections with important people and mekuravim to Chabad. How did you react within those circles – what did you tell the bachurim and what did you say to the mekuravim?
Instead of an answer, I get a description of the days preceding Gimmel Tammuz and Gimmel Tammuz itself. “On 27 Adar 5754 there was ‘yenne’ stroke.”
Before I can go on I have to understand R’ Zushe’s “yenne” (lit. “that one” – colloquially with a disbelieving tone of voice, “as if”). To him, “The Rebbe is not an Admur nor a Baba, not a ‘gutter yid,’ nor a tzaddik, kadosh or tahor. The Rebbe is also not a ‘neshama of Atzilus’ or a ‘new neshama.’ He’s a Rebbe! Someone whose raison d’être in this world is to be a channel for Hashem. I don’t understand Elokus; I don’t understand Hashem, and in the same way, I don’t understand the Rebbe at all! What the Rebbe lets me understand, thank you very much. And what he doesn’t? I don’t understand.”
At the same time, R’ Zushe also scorns slogans bandied about by some amongst our ranks that can be heard in almost the same words from him. “The Rebbe suffers and always suffered from us because we never really cared about the Rebbe. The most difficult day in the Rebbe’s life was 22 Shvat, when the Rebbetzin, the only person on earth who really cared about the Rebbe, passed away.”
My friend told me, “At many farbrengens, R’ Zushe would scream and cry, ‘What do people want – to get from the Rebbe, to get brachos, kiruvim, dollars and even sichos and maamarim, but what about the Rebbe? Does anybody really care about the Rebbe?”
R’ Zushe would say, “You are passing by the Rebbe to get a dollar and the Rebbe is standing for you, for many hours. Do you appreciate it? Say thank you – the Rebbe suffers because of you!”
R’ Zushe’s way of thinking is definitely not conventional. To him it is obvious that everything that occurred or occurs with the Rebbe happens only with his consent. It is the way the Rebbe shows us things, tries to wake us up. He says, “The Rebbe ‘made’ the events before Rosh Chodesh Kislev, but we did not get it. Then he ‘did’ 27 Adar to wake us up but we did not get it. Then the second 27 Adar did not help, and then the Rebbe ‘did’ Gimmel Tammuz and that did not really get us moving either.”
Those who remember R’ Zushe from the period before Gimmel Tammuz surely remember that he could not stand the wording of the Mee Sh’Beirach for the Rebbe: “among the rest of the sick among the Jewish people, healing of the soul and healing of the body, v’nomar amen.” “And what happened on Gimmel Tammuz? The Rebbe became healthy?” He asks. He did not understand nor accept the minyanim to say T’hillim for the Rebbe’s refua, but with kabbalas ol, he would get up early and join the minyan, “So that they shouldn’t get the wrong idea, chas v’shalom.”
To R’ Zushe there are no categories of “Meshichist” or “not a Meshichist.” He sees things differently. There is Chabad and there is Lubavitch: a Chabadnik is someone who has an answer for everything; otherwise, he must get an explanation for the burning question: Where is the Rebbe? It makes no difference what he believes or what he proclaims or does not proclaim: a Chabadnik is a know-it-all. Now the Rebbe is here, he will walk in to say a sicha.
“Lubavitchers don’t understand, don’t know, but they do what needs to be done with kabbalas ol even if they lose thereby.”
GIMMEL TAMMUZ IS EVERYONE’S PERSONAL PROBLEM
Can we go back to the days preceding Gimmel Tammuz?
In the Jerusalem Post it said the Rebbe had a stroke. I was in close contact with the American embassy at the time. A few days after 27 Adar, the then consul general called me, a gentile by the name of Mitchell, and he asked, “Zushe, when can I meet with you?” When I went to see him, he asked me, “So, tell me, what’s happening tomorrow?” He was referring to the Rebbe’s medical condition.
I interrupted and said, “Tomorrow the Rebbe will give out dollars.” He gave me a phone number and told me, “If something happens, call me, even in the middle of the night, and within two hours there will be a full staff here who will give visas to whoever wants them.”
Gimmel Tammuz was on a Sunday and I found out at 8:15 what had been publicized on the beepers in Crown Heights. Mitchell had already left that job. I had some phone numbers of other consular employees and I left a message for the consul. This was an off day at the American embassy, being Sunday, and the embassy is closed. The thought of opening on a Sunday is worse than having a bank open on Yom Kippur is to us. In any case, the consul told me that at 12, the consulate would be open and whoever wanted one would get a visa.
I didn’t fly to New York. I immediately went to the Tzach office after I heard that they were arranging a charter flight and I informed them that the embassy was open for the Chassidim. On the way, on the radio, I heard them interviewing someone from Crown Heights who was already explaining what would be with Chabad.
By the way [R’ Zushe said with great sorrow], that same day, Gimmel Tammuz 5754, stationery with the Agudas Chassidei Chabad logo on it was changed from “under the leadership of C”K Admur” to wording indicating… I don’t know which is worse, that this stationery was prepared before Gimmel Tammuz or that on that very day, someone had the time and presence of mind to produce the newly revised stationery.
***
“To R’ Zushe,” said my friend, “the subject of chai v’kayam is clear as day. But he deliberately uses shocking words, words which a Chassid would not utter. The reality is so horrifying and even worse is that it does not shake us up! So he uses terms that everyone shudders to hear.”
When the bachurim and people from the community and those you were in contact with from outside the community turned to you, what did you tell them?
I didn’t explain anything; I had nothing to say.
It’s bizarre how Chabadnikim know everything. They have an explanation for everything. I have explanations for nothing! I don’t belong to Chabad but to Lubavitch. In Chabad, everything is black and white. They have an explanation for everything. I know how to say that I don’t know.
And still, what did you tell the bachurim?
I could not tell anyone what to think or to feel. What are the choices? There are two options, either something happened just like Yud Shvat – I was in 770 then. They sent me to Brownsville to tell about the histalkus. That is where most of the Chabad Chassidim lived at that time. I knew Chassidim who were there on Beis Nissan (the day the Rebbe Rashab passed away) who knew Chassidim who were there on 13 Tishrei 5643 (the day the Rebbe Maharash passed away), and I can tell you and guide you in what needs to be done. That is the problem with Chabad.
Or, Gimmel Tammuz is unlike Yud Shvat, Beis Nissan and 13 Tishrei. Then, I have a problem. Gimmel Tammuz is the personal problem of every one of us. I don’t know, I don’t understand, but it’s not the Rebbe’s problem! The Rebbe has no problem; I have a problem with the situation, I don’t know what happened.
I often ask people, “tzimtzum k’pshuto or not k’pshuto?” In Chassidus it explains that the tzimtzum/constriction that Hashem made in the Ohr Ein Sof so there would be room for worlds is not meant literally. There was not, chalila, an actual removal of the light, just a tzimtzum in the illumination of the light. I get many sorts of answers, even in the form of insulting plays on words. But they are afraid to say that which appears in Tanya, that it is tzimtzum which is not k’pshuto. Why? Because then I will ask, “and what happened on Gimmel Tammuz?” and they will have to say, “I don’t know,” and a Chabadnik who was raised on chochma, bina, daas cannot say, “I don’t know.”
WE ARE NOT WAITING FOR THE RIGHT MOSHIACH
However you want to put it, isn’t it clear that today, when we don’t see the Rebbe, our longing is greater? And everyone, without exception, even those called “Meshichist,” who want the Rebbe to be revealed and even someone who is not called a “Meshichist” and wants the Geula so we will be able to see the Rebbe, truly wants Moshiach, truly wants Moshiach to come and to be able to see the Rebbe?
R’ Zushe, as always, restates the issue in far more pointed terms:
I maintain that there is a widespread and painful mistake in connection with Moshiach. There is a saying that is attributed to the Alter Rebbe: “The Moshiach that the world wants won’t come and the Moshiach who will come we are not waiting for!”
They say that when Moshiach comes it will be good for the Jews. That it needs to be good for the Jews is true without any connection to Moshiach, but we don’t need Moshiach in order for it to be good for the Jews! That is not Moshiach! We need to wait for Moshiach, pray for him to come, and do things because that is what we need to do. Waiting for Moshiach is like putting on t’fillin – nobody puts on t’fillin in order for it to be good for him.
I heard an unusual story a few years ago. One year, the Rebbe said a maamer “Ha’Ba’im Yashreish Yaakov.” The maamer was about the Jewish people having a problem, that in galus it is hard to serve Hashem because of the exigencies of galus, but when Jews know that in the future it will be good, this knowledge gives them the strength to contend with the problems of galus.
In 5750 they wanted to submit the maamer for editing. R’ Yoel Kahn prepared the maamer and R’ Leibel Groner submitted it to the Rebbe. The Rebbe looked at the maamer and said, “This is the opposite of the simple meaning.” When R’ Groner conveyed this answer to R’ Yoel, he was taken aback, “But it is what the Rebbe said!” and he wanted the maamer to be submitted for editing again and to ask the Rebbe what to write.
The second time, the Rebbe put the maamer on the desk and gave a bang on the desk and said, “Hashem has to make it good for the Jews now!”
It has to be good for Jews without any connection to Moshiach and we do not need to wait for Moshiach in order that it will be good for us; that is not Moshiach. We need to want Moshiach because the Rebbe wants Moshiach, because that is what is needed, because the world was created for Moshiach.
***
R’ Posner reverts to sarcasm:
Today, we don’t need the Rebbe. What do we need the Rebbe for? Boruch Hashem, we are doing fine. We have 770, Igros, each person has the address where he feels he is connecting with the Rebbe. He sends a letter, he gets or doesn’t get an answer, but the bracha is on the way. We made a Baba out of the Rebbe, someone who dispenses brachos.
You may be right but the fact is that through the brachos the Rebbe gives, many people are drawn close to him. Look at it like an educational method, giving a child a candy so he will learn and in the end, from the “lo lishma” will come the “lishma.”
The problem is that the candies have become the main thing. The candies/brachos need to be the means by which we bring the child, in age or level, to the goal. But it’s not the purpose; it’s the means, and for some reason this has become part of our way of talking, that the Rebbe is miracles and wonders.
I once heard a shliach say that we are the Rebbe’s hands and feet. The Rebbe does not need us. He wants us. True, there is no king without people, but we have proven that we can be Chassidim without a Rebbe. All these years, months, and days we are “alive.” We always knew that there is no king without people but now we have proven that we can be Chassidim without the Rebbe.
Aside from your mekuravim through your communal work, you have an in-house Chabad community in Lud, and many people remember you from yeshiva and look at you as a mashpia. How do you stoke the fire of Chassidishe emuna, of hiskashrus to the Rebbe at farbrengens and private discussions?
You need to think about the Rebbe, talk about the Rebbe, and do what the Rebbe says. That is the only way to be mekushar. I “live” with the Chassidim of previous generations whom my father knew and “live” with the stories about them like R’ Berel Kurenitzer, R’ Chatshe Feigin, R’ Yehuda Eber, R’ Yehoshua Isaac Baruch and other Chassidim. I can cry just by telling a story about R’ Berel Kurenitzer.
There is something I do not use but the young people do – videos of the Rebbe. Look at the Rebbe, listen to the Rebbe’s recordings, speak about the Rebbe. The everyday conversation needs to be about the Rebbe.
I “know” R’ Berel Kurenitzer, I live with the stories about him, but if I would see him on the street or hear his voice, I would not know it is him. You, when you will see the Rebbe, will immediately recognize him. You will know it is the Rebbe whether he has a black beard or a white one. The only thing which, unfortunately, will be a barrier between the youth and the Rebbe is the language. The Rebbe will speak Yiddish and the youth won’t understand it.
I was in 770 and I said to the bachurim, “Learn Yiddish, the Rebbe will be nisgaleh immediately and you won’t understand him.” So a smart aleck said, “The Rebbe will speak in Lashon Ha’kodesh.”
To be continued…