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Menachem Ziegelbaum, Beis Moshiach

During a special, never again-repeated tzeischem l’shalom for R’ Zushe before his departure to Eretz Yisrael in 5718 (1958), the Rebbe said among other things:  “The main purpose of this farbrengen is the trip of a shliach to our Holy Land, may it be rebuilt, to work himself and to give over to others that they too should work in a manner of shlichus in chinuch al taharas ha’kodesh, especially in the schools named for the Rebbe, my father-in-law, in the shlichus of the one it is named for.”

Indeed, ever since R’ Zushe was involved in chinuch in many positions and in this article we will attempt to give over some of his special educational perspectives.

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FIRST FORAY IN THE FIELD OF CHINUCH

At first, he taught in the Reshet schools. In 5720, he was drafted by the director of Yeshivos Tomchei Tmimim in Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi Efraim Wolf for various jobs. He recently discovered that this was by the Rebbe’s instruction. The Rebbe told R’ Efraim Wolf to employ Z.P.

From 5720 until 5768, R’ Zushe worked in various schools and yeshivos – in the yeshiva in Lud and the vocational school in Kfar Chabad and Kiryat Malachi.

Since 5768, R’ Zushe served as mashpia in various Chabad yeshivos and also served on the educational committee of Aguch in Eretz Yisrael.

One of his talmidim related, “I was a student of his the last year he taught in the yeshiva in Lud. Actually, it’s hard to use the word ‘taught’ regarding the bizarre ceremony that barely contained any teaching in the traditional sense. This is how the class went: As soon as he walked in to class, R’ Zushe would begin by citing how many years, months and days had passed since Gimmel Tammuz. In the next half hour, until nearly the end of class, he would share a collection of stories with which he ‘lived.’ Not miracle stories and not upbeat stories but life tales, sometimes about celebrated Chassidim. Using these stories he would discuss aspects of their personalities.

“It was only in the final minutes of the class that he would read several lines from the sefer Chassidus that was being learned, usually with no additional explanation. Even when he did explain, it was to highlight seeming contradictions such as, is there a world or not, is it tzimtzum k’peshuto or not, etc.

“We waited for the explanations, a Chassidic outlook built from the ground up, answers and not additional questions. Although we sought stability and clarity, we left R’ Zushe’s shiurim mostly confused.

“As the years passed, and every time we met by chance on the street and he smiled, I was reminded of him and what he said. I began to realize how much I had learned from him. I understood how much I had learned from the questions, the doubts and the contradictions that he presented nonstop. His intention was not to confuse; just the opposite. He wanted to convey: understand that the world is complex; don’t see everything as black or white; don’t be fazed by contradictions and questions. We might not have heard wondrous ‘haskalos’ from R’ Zushe on the teachings of Chassidus but he did present as an authentic Chassid with a straight and healthy intellect who dared to present the complexity of things, the full picture.”

Until his final months, he still traveled around to Chabad yeshivos and farbrenged with the tmimim and, as was his way, urged them to connect to the Rebbe and live with him day by day, hour by hour. R’ Zushe considered it his obligation to connect the young generation with the Nasi and prophet of the generation. In his effervescent energetic way, without obsequiousness, he “gave it” to the bachurim about the danger of apathy which could take hold even of them in their hiskashrus to the Rebbe.

When R’ Zushe spoke about his talmidim, he would melt. He once told me, “I have so many children, thousands of boys and girls.”

“In 5714, I had yechidus. I was an eighteen-year-old bachur. I wrote a note to the Rebbe with all the things I don’t want to be. Already then I was … [He circles his finger near his forehead]. I wrote that I don’t want to be a rav, and don’t want to be … a whole list. The Rebbe looked at the note and said, ‘Here you write everything you don’t want. What do you want?’ I didn’t know what to say and in the end I said, ‘A chicken farmer.’

“In the last few years I’ve thought of what I’ve done in my life and when the chevra heard about this, they said, ‘You raised chicks.’ So yes, I have hundreds and thousands like this all over the world.”

When I asked him about these talmidim, he corrected me, “Not talmidim. Nobody will say he is a talmid of mine; rather, a child of mine. I always worked to give each one this feeling that they are my children. (With emphasis:) I have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren all over the world.”

Along with his jobs in hashpaah, R’ Zushe served as director of the Chinuch Committee of Agudas Chassidei Chabad in Eretz Yisrael. This committee, formed by the director of Aguch at that time, R’ Shlomo Maidanchek, accomplished many real changes in the field of Chassidic education in Eretz Yisrael. It was not a rare sight to see him sitting with men decades younger than him and preparing impressive action plans in the field of chinuch.

R’ Zushe always spoke about the current generation in mixed tones. He would mention a saying by the Chozeh of Lublin, that Adam and Chava raised their children and gave them everything. Their children gave everything for the next generation and the next did the same for the next. Each generation sacrificed itself for the following generation and he was waiting, with enormous curiosity, to see who are the final children of history for whom everybody worked, and they are here!

“These children are the children of the generation of Moshiach. It all comes down to them and these are the children of our generation. This is the tangible representation of the concept of ‘extends upward without bounds and downward without end.’”

R’ ZUSHE’S HEART MELTED

If you didn’t know R’ Zushe you might have been thrown off by his powerful voice, sometimes, and his sharp comments. However, if you looked into his eyes you could get a glimpse inward to his soft and melting heart. He was all emotion. His heart was full of feelings of love and kiruv. He loved everyone, simply and genuinely.

“When he walked in the streets of the kfar, I would meet him occasionally,” said R’ Shneur Anteby. “He would stop, his expression turning serious as though piercing through and knowing everything. I always humbled myself in all innocence towards the older man with the perpetual suspenders and the short-sleeved shirts.

“Suddenly, out of the blue, he winked at me and he smiled mischievously. ‘Why did Savta Gina stop making couscous?’ he asked with a smile. ‘Because she doesn’t feel well,’ I answered.

“He was a big mashpia, so not stereotypical and with a powerful personality. When I say ‘mashpia,’ I mean that a look from him was enough to change your day, maybe your life … Something in his gaze always filled my heart; I felt that he really saw me, inside.

“He always asked how I am and we chatted a bit. I forgot for a moment that he was an esteemed personage with impressive knowledge in Chassidus who was mashpia on so many people, full of Ahavas Yisrael. Every encounter with him turned into a story. I know that over the years, numerous people, simple and those who weren’t, were taken by his special heart.”

Someone else added that when he got married he knew that R’ Zushe’s wife was seriously ill. “As we danced, I suddenly noticed him and I was shocked. I went over to him quickly and he smiled and said, ‘I couldn’t miss this.’ He wanted to say a quick l’chaim and he blessed me with all his heart. Then he got into a taxi and returned to the hospital.”

R’ Shneur Gurfinkel, Director of Machon Halacha Chabad, adds this about R’ Zushe’s good heart and boundless Ahavas Yisrael:

“R’ Zushe once told me that when he went to yechidus with the Rebbe Rayatz with his mother to get a bracha about treatment for his hand, the Rebbe Rayatz called him over, put his hand on his hand, and blessed him ‘You should have a strong heart, a healthy heart.’ When I heard this story from him, I wondered where was his strong heart?

“In the last twelve years, I was in close touch with R’ Zushe. Over the years, I also had the privilege of attending a daily farbrengen in the offices of the Vaadat HaChinuch and then at Machon Halacha Chabad. R’ Zushe would ‘land’ in the office at a different time every day and we knew that for the next hour or two there would be no working, just farbrenging. Although it wasn’t ‘professional,’ we knew that it was better than any guidance or workshop we’d ever have.

“Every day R’ Zushe would show up in a different mood. It was only when he spoke that I understood why. When that day he heard about a simcha in a family of Anash, it was a holiday for him; an older single man or woman who became engaged, a shliach who got out of debt, ‘small’ stories of shalom bayis or a tamim who came back on the derech – all this gave him real joy. However, on days that he heard not-good news, he would be affected to the point of tears and his shouting in the office toward heaven would reverberate far beyond the office …

“That’s the reason, in my humble opinion, that he was blessed with a ‘strong heart’ and a ‘healthy heart.’ R’ Zushe couldn’t allow things to pass him by; he always regarded things as personal. It was thus with his hiskashrus to the Rebbe which was real and pure without cutting any corners, and in his personal regard for tzaros or simchos among Anash and the Jewish people.

“When a few friends surprised me with a thirtieth birthday farbrengen, R’ Zushe appeared after he heard about it. When I tried to understand why he, who was around 80 at the time, had bothered to travel from Lud to Nachala to a small, unimportant surprise farbrengen, he just didn’t understand the question.

“The blessing for a strong heart was fulfilled when, despite having such a sensitive heart that bore so many burdens, his heart was strong and healthy and did not weaken after all those years.”

One of his talmidim in the yeshiva in Lud added, “In his shiurim we also felt his love for every talmid, for every Jew, for Chassidim of yesteryear, for the Rebbe. We saw how his pain for another touched him to the point of tears but we did not always understand what he was trying to get at. Why did he tell us what others hid? Why did he ask questions and not answer them? What did he want from us?

“As the years passed, and whenever we happened to meet on the street and he smiled his big smile, I was reminded of him and what he said and I began to realize how much I had learned from him. First, from his personality and conduct.  Many of the learned Chassidim and ovdim that he told about were outstanding in their service ‘between man and G-d,’ but no less in their interactions ‘between man and man.’ To him, Ahavas Yisrael was literal, no fooling around; not because one needs to and thus is it written, but as a natural feeling, to the point of crying over the pain of another.

“He had open love for every talmid. You could see he was happy to meet a talmid, certainly those that he was fond of, that he believed in.”

THE MASHPIA WHO BECAME A TOUR GUIDE

Even once he was in his eighties, R’ Zushe was young in spirit. He had many contradictory sides to him but loved to find the balance between them. Whenever he heard something, he loved to take the opposite position. He didn’t look back with nostalgia to earlier generations, although he actually did. He didn’t consider himself above the younger generation although he thought they had plenty more to learn, a fact that did not contradict his esteem of them.

Are you confused? That was R’ Zushe Posner.

He praised the good just as he attacked that which is not good. To him, there was no uniform policy. He knew how to separate and differentiate between one point and the next. To him, there was no “world of the younger generation” and “world of the older generation.” He would boil over when hearing about differences between “Meshichistim” and those who are not, and only had disgust for those who live their lives according to a fixed mold.

What hovered above all else was R’ Zushe’s hiskashrus to the Rebbe. The Rebbe filled his entire being. That is what he absorbed in his earliest years and it’s what he lived with until his final breath. To him, the Rebbe was everything.

The following story that he told, one of many, shows the depth of his hiskashrus to the Rebbe:

“When I was at the Rebbe in 5727, I had yechidus. The Rebbe asked me whether I had put a p’n on the tziyun. I said, ‘I brought a note to the Rebbe.’ To me, that was everything. I didn’t need more than that. The Rebbe asked me, ‘Did you go to the tziyun?’ I said I did. He asked me, ‘Did you say the maaneh lashon?’ I said I did. He said, ‘It says there that one places a p’n on the tziyun.’ I said again, ‘I brought a note to the Rebbe.’ The Rebbe asked, ‘When are you going home?’ I said in two days. The Rebbe said, ‘You won’t make it to the tziyun. Then submit a note to the secretaries and when I will be at the tziyun I will mention it there.’

R’ Zushe concluded with his characteristic tune, “What did the Rebbe do with my note? That doesn’t interest me. I brought a p’n to the Rebbe and after that, it’s his business.”

This is why the Rebbe once told him in yechidus to be a tour guide and he immediately went to study how to be a tour guide. He did not concern himself with his honor and stature in his position as a mashpia. That was not at all a consideration.

“Once, in yechidus, the Rebbe said to me, ‘Many tourists go to Eretz Yisrael and they are shown all the corrupt places.’ The Rebbe asked me to be a tour guide. I became licensed as a tour guide.”

Although he put on ‘this hat’ on only a few occasions, when he needed to he stepped up.

“One time I put it to use was shortly after the Six Day War. Since there were American bachurim in yeshiva, the Jewish Agency paid for a tour bus for a three-day trip. We went to the Galil and the Golan Heights and I was the tour guide.”

Whenever it came to hiskashrus and bittul to the Rebbe, R’ Zushe did not keep things to himself. For decades he went from city to city, from yeshiva to yeshiva, from kinus to kinus, and in each place he urged the Chassidim and bachurim to connect to the Rebbe. To a certain extent he felt bittul toward the younger generation who never saw the Rebbe and are nevertheless devoted to him.

“REBBE!’ HE WOULD BANG ON THE TABLE AND HIS VOICE WOULD THUNDER

A conversation with R’ Zushe was always a sweet experience. He used his unique terminology, characterized by blunt talk and biting sarcasm. Whether he meant to or not, he always swept his listeners into the depths of his heart that was wounded with pain and yearning for the Rebbe.

When R’ Zushe spoke about any point of truth he always got around to the ultimate point: the Rebbe. On this topic there were no compromises. His heart spoke while his lips moved. Rebbe! He would bang on the table and his voice would thunder. That was enough for the people around him to know, even feel, his yearning for the Rebbe. This yearning was with him every day, every hour. He would count the days since Gimmel Tammuz: “28 years, five months, and 18 days have passed since we saw the Rebbe and who is really bothered?” His voice was forceful, pounding and echoing from the depths of his heart.

What was Gimmel Tammuz 5754 to R’ Zushe? If by that you mean ‘tzimtzum k’peshuto,’ i.e. a histalkus r’l; that never happened. “G-dliness is eternal!” And yet, Gimmel Tammuz is happening right now! He didn’t need to imagine that ‘this morning … the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed in his days.’ He felt it in his flesh, blood and soul. He tried ‘to turn the world over,’ to cry out, farbreng, cry, shake up whoever was ready or not ready to listen. This concealment cannot continue.

From his heart’s blood he cried out the same cries with the same words. Tmimim who learned with him in yeshivos in Lud and Bnei Brak, Tel Aviv, Tzfas or Cholon, Kiryat Shmuel, the yeshiva gedola Lubavitch Beit Shemesh and any other place, in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, aughts, heard the exact same words.

At this time, when few are the people who were there at the beginning of the nesius, back at the first farbrengen, R’ Zushe was a man who experienced all seventy years of the Rebbe’s leadership and here was a young generation that wanted to receive from him and drink thirstily….

In an interview that I did with him, I said:

Let’s be honest. You older folk will never be satisfied with us. You will always say with a heavy sigh that this young generation is not what once was. Do you really think that you can demand of the next generation what once was in the past?

“I have a white beard and live in Eretz Yisrael for over fifty years. When they ask me if I miss the old days, I say no. I don’t. What was, was. I’m living today, living the continuation. When you are nostalgic, you stop living. When I look at the present, at the current generation, there are good things and not; there are deficiencies and inadequacies.”

(Emotionally): “I can tell you honestly: The Lubavitcher Rebbe has nothing to be ashamed of from the earlier Rebbeim. He has a cadre of guys who do everything in an outstanding way: great in Nigleh, outstanding in Chassidus, baalei haskala, in everything. I live by my senses and my sense tells me that if we take Chassidim from the earlier generations – the Lubavitcher Rebbe doesn’t need to be ashamed of his Chassidim.”

As always, he felt the need to see the entire spectrum. He spoke sorrowfully about those who wax nostalgic over the past and don’t look at the future. On the other hand, “It hurts me a lot that they forget the past.” No, to him this was not a contradiction. He believed that, “The present generation is the one that exists in the present and has no need to live in the past but it definitely needs to look at the past and learn from it.”

R’ Zushe often lamented, “I did not speak enough about the Rebbe, about hiskashrus. On second thought, what am I complaining about? If I had to live my life over again, would I do the same thing? I imagine that I would, because today I have the same yetzer hara that I had yesterday.

“Although I can say that I did educate my children this way; to live the Rebbe in the simplest way.”

KINDERLACH, I MAY HAVE TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOU

In recent years he was seriously ill but he did not allow this to divert him from his daily routine. He continued to travel from place to place, to farbreng and inspire, to inspect and exhort those at work – each place according to the need.

They say that when he first went to the hospital with his final illness, the nurse asked him since when he was suffering and he said, “Twenty-seven years, x number of months, and x number of days.” The nurse looked at him in shock and said, “Then why did you first come now?”

R’ Zushe replied, “How could you have helped me? I am suffering since I don’t see my Rebbe and you have no solution for me …”

His final public appearance was at a farbrengen for Hei Teves at the central farbrengen organized by Hisachdus HaChassidim in Binyanei Ha’umah in Yerushalayim. At first he stood and spoke but then he felt weak and had to sit. Even then, he didn’t stop. He continued to farbreng. He was well aware of his critical state.

“Kinderlach, I may have to say goodbye to you and when I say goodbye I don’t know what will be next, whether we will see one another again … I don’t know. But the way I feel now … if I cry, it’s for the twenty-seven years and six months that we don’t see the Rebbe. M’darf benkin noch’n Rebbe’n! We need to yearn for him!” His voice thundered in his weakness as he parted from the generations, from the thousands of ‘chicks’ that became his children.

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