Letter & Spirit: The Commissar’s Little Toy

In this week’s edition of Letter & Spirit, we present a letter written by Rabbi Nissan Mindel on behalf of the Frierdiker Rebbe, which he shared with a learning group he conducted in Manhattan. The letter was made available by his son-in-law Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro.

The letter describes an incident retold to Rabbi Mindel by the Frierdiker Rebbe, which occurred during the latter’s questioning by Soviet authorities in 1921 in Rostov-on-Don.

This weekly feature is made possible by a collaboration between CrownHeights.info and Nissan Mindel Publications. Once a week we will be publishing unique letters of the Rebbe that were written originally in the English language, as dictated by the Rebbe to Rabbi Mindel.

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It was in the summer of 1921, in the month of Tammuz (July),when the Rabbi was invited to appear at the Tch.K. – extraordinary committee, later to be known as the G.P.U. (the equivalent of the Nazi Gestapo and dreaded no less).

The Rabbi was then in Rostov/Don, and the “invitation” was the customary one: As the Rabbi was davening,(still in mourning after his father), three Tschekists entered the room, armed to their teeth, with rifles, guns, Caucasian knives and a belt of ammunition. Not attempting to disguise their hatred, they went up to the Rabbi and told him he was requested to accompany them immediately to the Tcheka.

Two of them were of the Yevsektzia(Jewish section), and the third a gentile. When the Rabbi told them he wished to conclude his prayers, the two Jews almost fell upon him trying to tear off his Tallis and Tefillin, and were it not for their gentile companion they would have forced him to accompany them before concluding his prayers. The gentile guard, however, prevailed upon them to let the Rabbi conclude his prayers.

(Incidentally the Rabbi recognized one of the Jews as a native of Shavel, having once come to him for help, and the Rabbi secured a position for him with a tobacco firm, and even lent him some money to start business on his own, that was of course before the revolution).

When the Rabbi concluded saying the last Kaddish, he took off his Tallis and Tefillin , and accompanied them to the dreaded Tchekah. He had an armed guard on each side of him, and one walking behind, like a very dangerous criminal. In those days one never knew whether one could come back alive from a visit to the Tcheka.

He was led into a large room where some of fifteen men sat at a long table, on each side, with two men at its head. The Rabbi was placed at the end of the table, still surrounded by the armed guard.

One of the two men sitting at the head of the table turned to the Rabbi saying, We are members of the committee investigating religious activity under the auspices of the party; we are engaged at present in investigating the Jewish faith. We had some questions cleared up by Rabbis Berman and Goldberg, whom we had invited here. Now you have been invited to clear some questions with regard to Kabbala and Chassidism.

He spoke in Russian.

The Rabbi replied in Yiddish, I have already been invited twice before to the Tcheka, when I already stated that I would not deviate from my principles, and the man or devil hasn’t been created yet who could make me give up as much as an iota!

Before the Rabbi managed to conclude his few words, one of the Tschekists present, sitting near the head of the table, picked up the gun lying in front of him (in addition to being armed with a gun, each one had a gun lying on the table before him, no doubt to intimidate these taken for an “inquisition”), saying: This toy does away with many principles, and opens the mouth of the dumb.

“You are absolutely mistaken”, the Rabbi said,” for this toy impresses only those who do not believe, these cowards who have only one world and many gods, to whom each passion is a god and they are afraid to lose this only world. But as to Jews who have only one G-d, but two worlds, this toy does not frighten, and even makes no impression whatever!”

“We have not called you for the purpose of annoying you, said the chairman, “and let’s hear your principles; maybe we can get together on them”.

“My principle is that I do not wish to hear nor to speak any other language but Jewish, even among Christians, and especially among men who belong to the Jewish people”.

“How do you know that we are Jews?” One of them asked.

“Maybe I am mistaken, and not all those present here are Jews. My grandfather could recognize a Jew at a glance even in the street. Once when he was in Kiev walking along Krestchathik Street, he stopped a young man dressed in modern clothes, clearly anxious to disguise his Jewish origin, and asked him where a famous professor lived. The young man became incensed, and said, ‘How do you know that I am a Jew?’ said my grandfather, ‘the Bris left an effect upon your nose.’ Now, I cannot recognize by that same criterion, but I still believe I am not mistaken.”

The first question was: “You observe your faith in every detail; you keep your heads covered, you wear Tzitzis , and so forth. Now all these things you do, do you do it because of conviction, or because of your faith and habit?”

“From absolute conviction”, said the Rabbi.

“If so, convince us also, and bring us to the same spiritual level as yours”, they said.

“I am prepared to oblige you, and surely you will give me an opportunity to fulfill your request; You will admit however, that if a student of astronomy is stopped in the street by someone, with a request to explain to him the celestial system of the stars and planets, surely the student of astronomy would tell him, I cannot explain it to you here in the street right now, but if you really wish to learn, come up to the planetarium, and you will see with your own eyes through the telescope the movements of the stars and planets. Similarly I say to you, if you really want to learn and be convinced about our faith in G-d and his Torah , come with me to the house of G-d, put on Tefillin, eat Kosher, observe Sabbath , then your mind will be clarified, as well as your heart, and you will be able to understand an ethical thought, and I will surely bring you little by little to that conviction in the truth of our faith and the Torah.

“But first explain to us intellectually, and then he will take it upon to observe the Jewish faith, but until then we cannot accept the religious matters as truth”.

“You surely know definitely that food not merely satisfies the stomach, and gives strength, but even fattens, because it turns unto blood and flesh. In medicine, the process of digestion is clearly explained, but suppose someone said, I shall refuse to eat until it will be explained to me how the food turns into blood and flesh. It is necessary to believe and eat and drink first, then go and study medicine if you wish. And so it is also with religion.”

The words made a profound impression.

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The above letter is from the archives of Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mindel, a personal secretary to the Previous Rebbe and The Rebbe, whose responsibilities included the Rebbe’s correspondence in English.

Many of the letters are now being published in The Letter and the Sprit, a series of volumes by Nissan Mindel Publications.

We thank Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro, director of Nissan Mindel Publications and the one entrusted by Rabbi Mindel, his father-in-law, with his archives, for making these letters available to the wider public. May the merit of the many stand him in good stead.