No Shortcuts in the Dollar Line

by Dovid Zaklikowski for Hasidic Archives

For the most part Dovid Deitsch did not bring up his business during his private audiences with the Rebbe. Once, however, he said that the man who had custom-built the factory’s machinery was soon retiring. Once he left, Dovid told the Rebbe, he would not have anyone to repair the complex equipment. The Rebbe gave his blessing and reassured Dovid, “If it will not be that person, it will be another.”

Dovid’s dedication to the Rebbe was a constant in the Deitsches’ family life. “Everything they heard from the Rebbe, there were no questions asked,” Ose said. “It just happened. It was done.”

During one of his private audiences, Dovid told the Rebbe that his mind often wandered during prayers. The Rebbe advised him to read every word from a siddur, and from then on Dovid recited every single prayer, even short blessings, from the text.

In later years the practice generated some good-natured teasing, when Dovid would ask Sara to bring him a siddur and she would chide him that he needed to be more active. “You know,” she would say, “if it were possible, you would ask me to go to the bathroom for you.”

For many years Dovid, together with several others, purchased the merit to do hagbah in 770. This gave him the opportunity to be near the Rebbe as he blew the shofar and while he read the Haftorah on Rosh Hashanah. He would also supply the plastic for many of the floats for the grand Lag B’Omer parades with the Rebbe.

When he came to the Rebbe to receive a dollar with a blessing, he would wait in the long line together with everyone despite his age. People would approach him and ask why he was waiting like the others: “Such an elderly, honored philanthropist would surely be permitted to skip the line.” Dovid would tell them, out of reverence, “When you come to the Rebbe, you need to wait in line.”

An excerpt from the forthcoming book Yards of Kindness: The Life of Dovid and Sara Deitsch, available at HasidicArchives.com.