Weekly Dvar Torah: The Enemy Who Understood the Rebbe

The Enemy Who Understood the Rebbe

“Who is Rabbi Schneerson?”

“Do you know that the activities of Rabbi Schneerson are extremely anti-Soviet?”

“How do you know what Rabbi Schneerson is doing abroad?”

“Are you a member of the underground network of Rabbi Schneerson?”

“I repeat: how are you informed about the activities of Rabbi Schneerson?”

These were not questions asked once. They were asked over and over again by Soviet interrogators in 1930 as they questioned a Lubavitcher Chossid named Reb Folye Kahan. Reading the transcripts nearly a century later is both fascinating and surreal. Page after page, question after question, one name keeps appearing:

Rabbi Schneerson. Rabbi Schneerson. Rabbi Schneerson.

One almost gets the impression that the entire Soviet Union was trembling before a single Jewish Rabbi.

And perhaps it was.

This week marks ninety-nine years since the liberation of the Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, from Soviet imprisonment in 1927.

The story itself is well known. The Communists arrested him for the “crime” of maintaining Jewish schools, supporting synagogues, building Mikvehs, and preserving Judaism under a regime determined to eradicate religion. He was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to ten years of hard labor, then to three years of exile. Finally, after less than a month, he was released.

But one question remains.

Why were they so afraid of him?

The Rebbe had no army.

He had no tanks.

He possessed no artillery.

He was not organizing a revolution.

All he was doing was teaching Jews to remain Jews.

Yet Stalin and his regime viewed him as a threat so dangerous that they were willing to imprison, exile, and execute anyone connected to him.

Sometimes the enemy understands us better than we understand ourselves.

The Communists understood something that many Jews forget.

A Jew who knows who he is can never be fully controlled.

Marx dismissed religion as “the opium of the masses.” The Soviet Union invested enormous resources trying to create a “new man” whose highest loyalty would be to the State. The Frierdiker Rebbe represented the exact opposite. He taught that a Jew belongs first and foremost to Hashem. There is a truth higher than the government, a loyalty higher than the Party, and a mission greater than self-preservation.

The Soviets understood that as long as Jews believed that, Communism could never truly win.

And so they declared war on Torah, on Mikvehs, on Jewish education, and on anyone associated with Rabbi Schneerson.

The astonishing thing is that the Rebbe’s followers accepted the challenge.

Many years later, in 1971, a small group of Chassidim were finally permitted to leave the Soviet Union. They arrived in America as survivors of decades of religious persecution. Among them was the legendary Chossid Reb Yankel Notik.

When they met the great sage Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, he was overwhelmed.

“I was in Russia when the Communists first came to power,” Rabbi Moshe told them. “I saw the Yeshivas closed. I saw the synagogues destroyed. I saw Jewish books confiscated. I fled because I saw there was no future for Judaism there.”

Then, with tears in his eyes, he asked:

“How did you do it? How did you emerge fifty years later as accomplished Torah scholars?”

Reb Yankel’s answer was simple.

“What choice did we have?”

Not, “Look how much we sacrificed.”

Not, “Look how heroic we were.”

Simply:

“What else could we have done?”

That answer may be the greatest testimony to the success of the Frierdiker Rebbe.

He raised a generation of Jews for whom Judaism was not a hobby, not a cultural attachment, and not an extracurricular activity.

It was life itself.

And if Judaism was life itself, then preserving it was not heroism.

It was necessity.

That same attitude appears in the remarkable memoir ¬Samarkand by Reb Hillel Zaltzman, one of the leaders of the Jewish underground in Soviet Russia.

After recounting decades of danger, secret Yeshivas, constant surveillance, and endless fear of the KGB, Reb Hillel concludes his memoir with a startling confession.

He asks himself:

“Did we do enough? Could we have done more?”

Think about that for a moment.

A man who risked his life for Judaism.

A man who spent decades running from the secret police.

A man who helped preserve Torah observance under one of history’s most brutal regimes.

And his final thought is not pride.

It is self-examination.

Did we do enough?

Could we have reached more Jews?

Could we have accomplished more?

Perhaps that is the secret of a Lubavitcher Chossid.

The question is never how much I have done.

The question is how much more remains to be done.

And that brings us back to the Frierdiker Rebbe.

Ninety-nine years later, the verdict of history is in.

The Soviet Union is gone.

The Communist Party is gone.

The interrogators are gone.

The prison cells remain only as museum exhibits.

But Judaism lives.

The very places where Chassidim were imprisoned for teaching Torah now contain thriving Jewish communities.

Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik serves as a Shliach in Kazan, Russia. Recently, before Simchas Torah, a local police chief contacted him. He lived too far away to attend the synagogue and wanted to know how he could participate in the dancing.

Rabbi Gorelik suggested that he take any Jewish book and dance with it in his home.

After Yom Tov, the officer sent a video of himself wearing a Kippah and Tzitzis, embracing a Jewish book and dancing with joy.

Think about that image.

The successors to those who once persecuted Jews are now seeking guidance from a Chabad Shliach on how to celebrate Simchas Torah.

Rabbi Itzik Gorelik, a Shliach in Tyumen, Siberia, recently shared videos of the construction of a beautiful new Mikvah for the local Jewish community.

A Mikvah in Siberia.

Built openly and proudly.

The very activity for which the Frierdiker Rebbe was arrested.

Tell me again who won.

The Soviets knew exactly who the threat was.

They were right.

Not because the Rebbe threatened their army.

Not because he threatened their economy.

Not because he threatened their political power.

He threatened something far deeper.

He threatened the illusion that man can live without G-d.

The Frierdiker Rebbe taught that every Jew carries within himself a spark of the Divine. That spark may be hidden. It may be challenged. It may be persecuted. But it can never be extinguished.

Stalin understood the power of that idea.

That is why he feared it.

And that is why he lost.

Yud-Beis Tammuz is not merely a celebration of one man’s release from prison.

It is the celebration of an eternal truth.

Empires rise and fall.

Ideologies come and go.

Tyrants appear and disappear.

But the Jewish soul endures.

Ninety-nine years ago, Stalin declared war on a Rabbi.

Ninety-nine years later, the Rabbi’s children and grandchildren are building Jewish communities across the globe, including hundreds throughout the former Soviet Union.

The Soviets understood something that we must never forget.

A Jew who stands tall, proud of his Torah, proud of his mission, and proud of his connection to Hashem, is stronger than any empire.

History has already rendered its verdict.

The Rebbe won.

Have a Shabbos of Freedom and Pride,
Gut Shabbos,

Rabbi Yosef Katzman