Dear Alumni Sheyichyu!
Sholom U’Brocho!
Mazeltov to Rabbi and Mrs. Lavy Kossofsky on the birth of their daughter. Mazeltov to Rabbi and Mrs. Yisrolik Reices on the birth of their daughter. May they bring him up lTOveCHuMAA”T mitoch harchovo, and to be true chayolos! (If anyone is aware of any mazeltov’s that I omitted please let me know).
Thank you as always for the feedback, it is much appreciated.
A group of bochurim graduated from the Yeshiva in Montreal, and continued in college (this took place in the chof’s–the 60’s). However, while pursuing their degrees, they did not forsake their Yeshiva education, and continued to have regular shiurim in Torah.
Rabbi Meir Plotkin, of Montreal, would write regular reports to the Rebbe, about various activities of hafotzas hamaayonos that were taking place there, and he included, in his duch’s, reports about the Torah shiurim of these bochurim.
In March, their year ended, and they all took jobs for the summer months. At the same time, they all expressed interest in continuing with the shiurim when school would resume in the following September. In the duch of that month, Rabbi Plotkin included a report of this commitment.
A few months passed. It was the very beginning of September, and one day there was urgent calling in the home of Rabbi Plotkin; - Rabbi Chodakov was calling and trying to reach him. Rabbi Plotkin was not home, and Rabbi Chodakov was calling repeatedly to try to get through to him (this was before the days of cellphones (before beepers even!), and there were limited options available to reach someone who was away from home).
Eventually Rabbi Plotkin received the message that Rabbi Chodakov is attempting to reach him, and he immediately called Rabbi Chodakov.
“Where are you?”, demanded Rabbi Chodakov, “you wrote a letter to the Rebbe”.
“I didn’t write any letter to the Rebbe”, Rabbi Plotkin argued.
“You wrote a letter to the Rebbe, and I’m holding it in my hand”, Rabbi Chodakov insisted. Rabbi Plotkin couldn’t remember any letter that he could be referring to, but, on the other hand, he couldn’t argue with him either.
“If, as you say, you’re holding the letter in your hand, then please read it to me, so that I’ll know what you mean”.
Rabbi Chodakov complied, and read the note in which he shared the intent of the abovementioned bochurim to resume their shiurim in September. Rabbi Plotkin recognized it immediately, but was puzzled. “Indeed, I wrote that, it was a number of months ago”.
“Well, now it’s September, and the Rebbe wants to know what’s with resuming the shiurim. He said he will not leave to the ohel until he gets a response. His travelling to the ohel today has already been delayed a few hours while I tried to reach you”!
Rabbi Plotkin was very flustered. He began to stammer that September had just begun. Surely they would return within the next few days, and would resume their shiurim. But for Rabbi Chodakov that answer did not suffice.
“What should I give over to the Rebbe?” he repeated.
Rabbi Plotkin saw that there was no getting around it. “Tell the Rebbe that the shiurim will definitely continue”.
Needless to say, he lost no time in informing those bochurim of the great interest that the Rebbe took in their learning!
