A Mother In Israel

Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, wife of the scholar and Kabbalist Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson and mother of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, passed away in the late afternoon on the Shabbat between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, 1964. At the time that Rebbetzin Chana returned her pure soul to her Creator, her chair in the women's section of the main Lubavitch synagogue ("770" Eastern Parkway) inexplicably caught fire and burned.

The following vignettes about Yom Kippur are from Rebbetzin Chana's memoirs. They took place during Rav Levi Yitzchak's years of exile by the Soviet government in Chi'li, Kazakhstan.

On Yom Kippur, the three of us-my husband, a Roumanian Jew, and I-enclosed ourselves in our room. It is hard to set down on paper the emotions and the spiritual states that we experienced on that day.

Suddenly, we became aware of eyes peering at us through the window. Our guest and I were frightened to open the door, but as soon as the Rav realized what was going on, he went over to the door and threw it open wide. Our unexpected guest turned out to be a young Lithuanian Jew, also in exile.

Here, in exile, this young fellow worked as a wagon-driver. He related to us that while driving his wagon, he had caught a glimpse of the Rav and was struck by his appearance. Since this had occurred during the week before Yom Kippur, he had decided to find out who this person was and where he lived, so that he could try to be in his presence on the holiday. The lad felt that if he could be privileged to be with the Rav on this holiest of days, it would ease the weight of his sorrows and be a balm for his soul. Somehow, our young visitor had managed to locate us.

Half an hour later we heard a knock on the door. We opened it to find a frightened woman who, like the young wagon-driver, yearned to be in the Rav's presence on this day. It seemed that she and her husband had been exiled here from Nikolaiev, and while her husband refused to pray anymore, she herself felt a greater need to pray now than she had ever felt in the past. Not allowing the grueling fast to deter her, she trudged a distance of four kilometers in order to reach our house.

The influx of refugees to our area brought about a severe housing shortage, and the Government responded by issuing a decree restricting each person to a specific number of square meters of living-space. According to the new law, our one room was now large enough to house five people.

The head of the Department of Housing in our area was a gentile engineer, also an exile. He had authored several books on mathematics and occasionally engaged the Rav in scholarly discussions on that subject. Because of his great respect for my husband, this man overlooked the "vacant" space in our room and did not send anyone to share our quarters.

This was a great favor to us.

One day, the daughter or our landlady arrived in the village together with her two children and immediately began dispatching a flurry of petitions to the Chief of Housing. Making great play of the scandalous fact that an exiled Jew had such a large apartment while she, a true proletarian and a loyal Communist, had no place to live at all, she insistently demanded authorization to move into Schneerson's room, especially since it was situated so close to her mother's place.

Having no choice, the Chief issued a permit which gave its bearer the right to move into our room. However, he did not give this permit to the landlady's daughter but to someone else, instead. A teacher with a small child had also applied for a dwelling, and since she was a refined person, he assumed that we would get along much better with her than we would with the landlady's daughter.

The next day, the teacher and her son arrived at our house. Waving the permit at the landlady, she crowed triumphantly, "Schneerson doesn't want a gentile neighbor? - I'll show him!"

The day on which this happened was only a couple of weeks before Yom Kippur. With tears in his eyes, the Rav said to me, "How will I be able to pray here on the Holy Day?" Immediately he began to search his mind for a solution. And we faced yet another problem - keeping kosher - since the kitchen would have to be shared with a gentile.

We were amazed when, without explanation, the teacher left the permit with us and walked out. One week passed, and then another; she never came back! And when the landlady's daughter came along, voicing her demands, we showed her the permit - proof that the room was already occupied to capacity.

After Yom Kippur, the teacher approached my husband on the street. "Rabbi," she inquired in Yiddish, "how was your fast? I also fasted!"

It turned out that this woman was a Jewish refugee from Poland who, in order to save her life, had forged a passport indicating that she was gentile. Subsequently, she had wandered from place to place until arriving in Chi'ili.

"As soon as I saw you," she explained, "I decided not to inconvenience you in any way. Live on in your room, alone and in peace; if anybody complains, you can show them my permit."

Similar causes for small celebrations would arise from time to time. They invariably came about as a result of the high esteem in which everyone held my husband - even those who saw him for the first time.

From A Mother in Israel, the Life and Memoirs of Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, translated by Yrachmiel Tilles, Kehot Publications