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here’s an ancient and beautiful story, passed down for decades from parent to child, teacher to student, and recently put to a song featured on Abie Rottenberg’s Journeys 5.

It’s the story of a chassidic rebbe who managed to procure a humble quantity of flour in honor of that first Pesach after World War II. Together with his son, he lovingly mixed the flour with water, then swiftly kneaded, rolled, and shaped pristine circles of dough before inserting them into a burning oven.

Word got out immediately and spread like wildfire. Matzos! The Rebbe has matzos for Pesach!

A long line formed. The Rebbe with his son began dispensing matzah. With their limited quantities, they had to establish a strict rule: just one matzah per person.

But one petitioner protested. He received his single portion but demanded more. “My father is the Rebbe of Seret-Vizhnitz,” he said. “He needs three matzos!”

The Rebbe tried to explain that this wasn’t possible, but the man would not take no for an answer.

The Rebbe looked at his son. “How can we deny the request of a Rebbe?”

They gave the man four matzos — one for him, three for his father — and turned to the next Yid in line.

The lines dwindled and the distribution finally ended. The Rebbe headed home with his son to begin their own Pesach preparations. There was a sudden knock at the door. There stood the son of the Seret-Vizhnitz Rebbe, two matzos in hand.

“My father was concerned,” he explained, “that you would not keep any matzos for yourselves. He wanted to make sure there would be two left for you.”

And with that, he returned the two extra matzos he had insisted on receiving.

That year the Rebbe — Reb Eliezer Zusya Portugal of Skulen, and his son, Reb Yisroel Avrohom  — fulfilled the mitzvah of matzah, despite their insistence that every other Jew take precedence.

This story took place in Bucharest, Romania, where Reb Eliezer Zusya Portugal, the first of the Skulener Rebbes, lived following the war. The family eventually emigrated to New York, and the Rebbe reestablished his court in Crown Heights. In the summer of 1982, he passed away and his only son, Reb Yisroel Avrohom, who stood by his side on that day, baking matzahs and dispensing them freely, assumed leadership of the chassidus. He, too, was known as a tremendous tzaddik, carrying the mantle of kedushah, taharah, and impossible selflessness.

On the 25th of Adar, 2019, Reb Yisroel Avrohom left This World, leaving behind thousands of chassidim and eight prestigious children. His oldest son, Reb Shaya Yankel ztz”l, moved from Montreal to New York, where he took his holy father’s place in the Boro Park Skulener Beis Medrash. Tragically, he passed away in Elul of this past year.

His four brothers share the title “Rebbe” over their various courts: one in Yerushalayim, one in Monsey, one in Williamsburg, and the youngest in Lakewood. The three daughters are each married to great talmidei chachamim: Rav Chaim Dov Stern is the Skulener Rav of Bnei Brak, Rav Shimon Yoel Weinberger is the rav of the Vitka kehillah in Williamsburg, and Rav Dovid Leib Klughaupt leads the Skulener Kollel in Boro Park.

They’re many miles from Bucharest, Romania, but these scions of the Skulener dynasty are doing today precisely what their father and grandfather did back then. They are giving out matzos — messages of untarnished mesorah and unwavering emunah — to thousands of Yidden.

And they take nothing for themselves.

Remember Who’s the Balabos

A few years ago, an organization called the Lakewood Shabbos Project was founded to help local youth struggling with shemiras Shabbos. The project was the brainchild of Beis Medrash Govoha rosh yeshivah Rav Dovid Schustal, but prior to its launch,  Reb Dovid reached out to the Skulener Rebbe of Lakewood and requested that he serve as a partner in the venture. The project is now formally under the auspices of both Rav Dovid Schustal and the Skulener Rebbe of Lakewood. The Rebbe is actively involved, providing guidance and counsel to the avreichim involved in its various activities.

That a rosh yeshivah of Beis Medrash Govoha should seek the assistance of a chassidishe rebbe might seem surprising — but not if you know the rebbe in question. The Skulener Rebbe of Lakewood has a close relationship with many of the town’s roshei yeshivah. He is an address for bochurim as well, even those of litvishe yeshivos. Over the course of the week, he holds several short chavrusashafts — some are just five-minute sessions — with bochurim in need of chizuk.

But his relationship with Beis Medrash Govoha has particular poignance. The Rebbe moved to Lakewood some 13 years ago, per his father’s instruction. Reb Yisroel Avrohom had visited Lakewood and, while deeply taken by its immense devotion to Torah, felt that it could benefit from the added flavor of chassidus. He thus advised his youngest son to move to the heavily litvish town and establish a beis medrash there.

The beginnings of Skulen-Lakewood were humble, starting in a trailer on Ninth Street between Lexington and Clifton.  But Reb Yisroel Avrohom’s insistence that his son’s improvised beis medrash signal invitation to all — not just Skulener chassidim — was soon justified.

Indeed, this kehillah was for all of Klal Yisrael. The Rebbe’s popularity grew, ultimately leading to the construction of the new beis medrash, which formally opened its doors in June  2018.

Each morning it hosts a vibrant kollel boker, from six to seven a.m., when Shacharis begins. There are three minyanim daily, but the Rebbe specifically did not want the beis medrash to become a “minyan factory.” Instead, he wanted it to be open to all who wish to learn there throughout the day.

The Rebbe delivers a halachah shiur every night and multiple shiurim on Thursday nights; one for bochurim and a second one (running from 11 p.m. until 1 a.m.) for avreichim. Following the shiurim, the attendees join in song, singing old-time Skulener niggunim that inspire them with the ruach of the approaching Shabbos.

After each gathering, there is an opportunity to speak briefly with the Rebbe in private. “You started a new yeshivah, right?” he’ll ask a bochur who had consulted with him a week prior. “How has it been going?”

Fathers bring their bar-mitzvah-aged sons to the Rebbe for tefillin-leigen. The Rebbe — following his father’s custom — takes some 45 minutes to read through each line of the L’shem Yichud  said prior to donning the tefillin, explaining its simple meaning and basic relevance to each new bar mitzvah boy. And each Lag B’omer, the Rebbe presides over a hadlakah that sees some 5,000 participants.

None of these encounters are exclusive to Skulener chassidim — all in search for the varmkeit that Skulen offers in flowing abundance are welcome.

Despite the swelling numbers of admirers and chassidim, the Rebbe never forgets the lonely, the forgotten, the forlorn. “Every now and then,” a chassid shares, “after davening on Shabbos, the Rebbe walks to a yeshivah for bochurim struggling with Yiddishkeit. He goes over to the boys and asks each his name. If a boy says Avraham, he’ll say ‘Avraham? Like Avraham Avinu! Listen, Avraham, I have a beis medrash a few blocks away. We would love to see you there! Come whenever you wish, for a coffee or some mezonos.’”

At tish on Friday night, the Rebbe is completely engrossed in his avodah. The song “Uv’yom haShabbos, Shabbos kodesh sisu v’simchu” (pronounced “sisi v’simchi”) seems to whisk him away, his face aflame as he dances to the tune pulsating with the love for Shabbos that his forefathers instilled into their music — and their progeny.

“But,” says a chassid, “if someone walks in who he senses needs chizuk, he immediately stops, calls the fellow over, pours a cup of grape juice, and hands it to him with a bright smile.”

And he has never forgotten the mandate his father gave him when he first made the move. “Remember,” Rav Yisroel Avrohom told him, “There’s a balabos in Lakewood: the yeshivah and the roshei yeshivah. If you go to Lakewood, you have to submit yourself to them.”

The Rebbe therefore learned two full sedorim each day in Beis Medrash Govoha for many years, developing a close connection with the roshei yeshivah and earning their immense respect. It’s a relationship that goes both ways, and the residents of the town are the true beneficiaries.

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very chassidus has its roots, and the Rebbe tells me that his great-grandfather, Reb Yisroel Avrohom Portugal, was a chassid of the first Sadigura Rebbe even as he served as rav of Skulen (Sculeni), a city in Moldova. His son Reb Eliezer Zusya was born and raised there. Reb Eliezer Zusya was only 17 years old when, on Lag B’omer of 1895, his ailing father’s body began to shut down.

“A group of the most prominent community members came to the house,” the Rebbe shares. “My great-grandfather had been unwell for quite some time and hadn’t spoken in weeks. As he lay on his deathbed, the shochet asked, ‘Vus tracht der rov yetzt, what is the rav thinking about now?’ Suddenly, my great-grandfather spoke. ‘Vus fregsts du, what are you asking?! Rabbos machshavos b’lev ish, there are many thoughts in the heart of man [Mishlei 19:21].”

Seventeen-year-old Reb Eliezer Zusya understood what his father was relaying in that cryptic statement. “My grandfather explained that his father was referencing a pshat of the Sadigura Rebbe. ‘Rabbos machshavos,’ the pasuk says, ‘there are all sorts of thoughts, ideas, plans, and aspirations. But this is only true b’lev ish, in the heart of an ‘ish,’ someone who lives with the conceit of his own importance.

“How can one overcome that conceit?  Atzas Hashem hi sakum — the eitzah, the solution, is to live only with Hashem. Hashem is all that matters. When there’s no ish anymore, when it’s all about the Ribbono shel Olam, then one’s considerations in life will be aligned with that which is proper and constructive.”

This was the final mandate issued by the Rav of Skulen. His neshamah soon left him, and his teenage son, already known for his prodigious genius and fluency in Shas and poskim, rose to take the helm of the community in place of his father.

In keeping with his father’s final message, his total abnegation of self would define his leadership, even as the world spiraled into chaos and destruction.

Leave “Me” Behind

Reb Eliezer Zusya worked tirelessly to promote Yiddishkeit in Skulen, striving to upgrade the townspeople’s knowledge of hilchos Shabbos and establishing a formal school for Jewish children. He also worked relentlessly to combat the dire influence of the Haskalah, which wrought spiritual devastation across Europe.

During this time, in Sivan 1923, he was blessed with a son whom he named Yisroel Avrohom, after his father. As Reb Eliezer Zusya’s reputation grew, his role as Rav began a natural transition toward that of Rebbe. His devoted leadership of his town and his chassidus went on for some 20 years. At that point, his success was noted by the Adas Yereim kehillah in Czernowitz, a much larger city, then in Bukovina (soon to revert to Austro-Hungarian rule), some 150 miles southeast of Skulen. They petitioned Reb Eliezer Zusya to serve as their rav and, upon receiving the encouragement of the Sadigura  Rebbe, he accepted the offer. In Czernowitz, too, he worked to reinforce fealty to Torah and mitzvos.

And then came the war. To this day in Skulen, great reverence is held for the sefer Be’er Mayim Chaim, written by Rav Chaim Tryer, which chronicles the lives of the great Rebbes from the very early years of chassidus. To avoid Nazi persecution, Reb Eliezer Zusya and Reb Yisroel Avrohom hid in the Be’er Mayim Chaim’s shul. The fact that they were never discovered is a miracle, which they attribute to his merit.

And if Reb Eliezer Zusya’s role as Rav demonstrated exceptional dedication to halachah, the upheaval of the war years and their horrific aftermath revealed a level of near-angelic selflessness.

An incalculable number of children were left orphaned in the wake of the Holocaust and Reb Eliezer Zusya adopted hundreds of them and brought them into his home. This meant that there was hardly space for anything or anyone. Each night, the floors were lined with sleeping children, all of whom referred to the Rebbe as “Tatte.” In 1945, Bukovina was overtaken by the Russians and Reb Eliezer Zusya, along with his family and many adoptees, fled to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. There, he continued to care for the children, an effort that became a family endeavor. In 1950, Reb Yisroel Avrohom, the Rebbe’s only child, married Reizel Kahana-Stern, and she immediately joined the family “business.”

“Shortly before my parents’ chasunah,” the Rebbe tells me, “My father told my mother, ‘If you are to marry me, there is one thing you must leave behind: der vort ‘ich,’ the word ‘me.’”

It would take less than 24 hours after the wedding for the new kallah to comprehend this instruction.

“My mother had assumed that, since my father was the only child of the Skulener Rebbe, he would certainly be given respectable accommodations to live in after the wedding.” But it wasn’t so; they were given a small room off the beis medrash as their new lodgings.

That wasn’t all; the next morning, Rebbetzin Reizel was awakened by insistent knocking. “She thought that community members had come to serve breakfast,” the Rebbe says with a smile. “But instead, when she opened the door an army of children marched into the room. ‘We were told that we were getting a new sister!’ they cried. ‘We need breakfast! And we need help getting dressed!’”

In that instant, the new kallah understood her role. She wholeheartedly adopted the worldview of the Portugal family — a view that saw everyone but the self.

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1947, Romania fell to the Soviet Union’s militantly atheist Communist regime. In 1949, the Communist authorities arrested and incarcerated Reb Eliezer Zusya. He was released two months later. Reb Eliezer Zusya’s “crime” was his unwavering commitment to spreading Yiddishkeit. The Romanians in particular were infuriated the way he continued to encourage Yidden to hold onto Yiddishkeit, traveling throughout the spiritually devastated Romania to offer whatever chizuk he could. The Romanians couldn’t forgive him. In 1953 he was again imprisoned, and released sometime later.

In 1959, on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, he was taken into custody again — this time, along with his son Reb Yisroel Avrohom. The official charge was espionage on behalf of Israel and the United States, but everyone knew it was a cruel excuse. The imprisonment lasted a torturous four and a half months, concluding on Erev Shabbos Nachamu. Father and son elected to remain in prison over Shabbos, lest their liberation result in chillul Shabbos.

Little is known of the torment that they endured during this time because neither Rebbe ever talked about it. In a conversation with Mishpacha (Issue 805)  Reb Levi Yitzchok Silber, a well-known Boro Park askan whose family has been connected to Skulen for decades, shared how, in the year 2000, Rebbetzin Reizel told him that “Ich hob chasunah gehat mit mein heiliger mahn in Tuf Shin Yud, I married my heilige husband in 1950 and until today, 50 years later, I do not know what he went through in jail. When he speaks about the time his father, the Rebbe, was in jail, occasionally I understand something about his experience too. But if he realizes that he is revealing something about himself, he stops mid-sentence.”

Reb Levi Yitzchok continued that Reb Eliezer Zusya once told his father, Reb Dovid Silber z”l, “I want to tell you who my Srulik’l is. In the prison in Romania, they wanted him to inform on other people. They threatened to jam his fingers in a metal door, but Srulik’l said nothing. They then took him and jammed his fingers, not once, not twice, not three times. My son still did not let out one word, one name. That’s who my Srulik’l is.”

At one point, young Rebbetzin Reizel was jailed as well, and mercilessly beaten even though she was expecting her first child.

“After her petirah,” the Rebbe tells me, “My father instructed that this be inscribed on her matzeivah. He felt that her imprisonment for the ‘crime’ of spreading Yiddishkeit was a zechus that had to be memorialized.”

Singing of Salvation

Yet through their trials and travels, travails and prison sentences, the Rebbes of Skulen sang. The Skulener court is famous for its beautiful, deeply melodious niggunim, effusing upbeat emunah and transcendent spiritual joy. And it’s not for naught that the Rebbes of Skulen made niggun a part of their avodah.

During the early years of his leadership, upon establishing the cheder in Skulen, Reb Eliezer Zusya noted that his students had already been impacted by the influence of the Haskalah. To counter this, he would take the students on daily walks and teach them niggunim. Together, they sang, rebbi and talmidim, souls bound in song and in purity.

Reb Eliezer Zusya composed songs throughout his life — even during his prison sentences — and he would say he saw those sparks of musical inspiration as signs that Hashem was with him even in his dire condition.

Reb Yisroel Avrohom was just nine years old when his father sent him to Vizhnitz to learn in the yeshivah of Rav Eliezer Hager, the Damesek Eliezer ztz”l, the son of the Ahavas Yisrael, Rav Yisrael Hager of Vizhnitz ztz”l. He sang his father’s songs there, and the Damesek Eliezer enjoyed them so much that he encouraged his young student to create music of his own.

In what would define the genre, a ten-year-old Srulik’s very first song was set to the words “yiru eineinu, v’yismach libeinu, v’sagel nafsheinu beyshuascha be’emes, Our eyes will see, and our hearts will celebrate, and our souls will rejoice, upon Your true salvation.”

The song continues to be sung today in Skulen with profound emotion. Rejoicing in salvation, as it were, carries significant depth in Skulener tradition. The Torah shared by Reb Eliezer Zusya over the years was compiled into seforim titled Noam Eliezer. In the introduction to the volume on Tehillim, Rav Yisroel Avrohom writes how, upon leaving jail, his father turned to him and shared the words of the final Maharsha in Maseches Taanis.

There, the Maharsha comments on the passuk “nagilah v’nismechah b’yeshuaso, let us celebrate and take joy in His salvation.” The Maharsha points out that Dovid Hamelech does not refer to “our salvation” but rather, to His salvation. The Maharsha explains that Hashem is with us in our pain. When He sends us salvation, in a sense, He Himself sees deliverance as well.

Reb Eliezer Zusya’s message to his son was, “Yes, we are free and this warrants celebration. Not because of our own salvation, but because of Hashem’s.”

Because in Skulen, it is never about you. The word “Ich” stays at home.

The songs of Skulen all carry this undertone — that life is about something bigger and greater than one’s self. That within every person there lies a neshamah whose greatness flows from the all-encompassing kedushah of Hashem Himself.

I share with the Rebbe how I was once zocheh to attend his father’s tish and watch a niggun come down through him to the world. I remember vividly how he appeared in the room around midnight, adorned in a shimmering white beketshe whose glimmer matched the shine on his face. He was humming a tune. The chassidim sang Shalom Aleichem and he sang along, only to revert to the tune he had been humming. They sang Eishes Chayil and the Rebbe sang along  — and then went back to his tune.

I watched as he opened a large siddur and placed his finger on the page. He then picked up the tune again, this time setting it to words. “Ashrei ashrei ha’am, shekacha lo. Ashrei ashrei ha’am, sheHashem Elokav.” Apparently, he had opened the siddur at random and pointed to a line — and took it as a sign from Heaven that the tune should be put to these words.

Hundreds of chassidim listened intently to the Rebbe sing the freshly composed niggun. Then, slowly, but picking up energy, they began to sing along. Soon, the entire room was reverberating with a thundering rendition of “Ashrei Ha’am!”

The Rebbe’s eyes widen at this account. “You were there for Ashrei Ha’am?” he asks. I nod. “Di bist duch fun di Ashrei Ha’am!” he exclaims. “You are a member of the ‘fortunate nation!’ My father kuched in that niggun!”

The fact that I remember the song is itself unusual, I tell the Rebbe. I don’t have much of a musical memory, yet this song somehow stuck. “S’iz gevehn dein neshamah,” the Rebbe explains, “it was your neshamah that internalized the niggun.”

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Noam Eliezer on parshas Shemos, Reb Eliezer Zusya shares an insight into the phrase “Pakod pakadeti, I have surely remembered you” — the Divine code to be spoken only by the destined redeemer to the Jews enslaved in Mitzrayim. What is the significance of the duplicate expression?

Reb Eliezer Zusya explains that, should a man have appeared in Mitzrayim and demonstrated a host of miracles, it would be tempting for the enslaved Jews to consider him the chosen redeemer. But, he says, they would first have to consider: What kind of liberation was he promising? If material freedom was all he offered, then he was not the man they’d been waiting for. The redeemer had to provide both physical and spiritual freedom. Therefore the “code words” employed the double language of pakod pakadeti.

In a sense, Reb Eliezer Zusya could have been talking about his own mandate. The selflessness of Skulen demands an intense focus on the material wellbeing of fellow Jews along with an equal emphasis on their spiritual welfare. While in Romania, Reb Eliezer Zusya sacrificed everything for the hundreds of orphans in his care. He insisted that his son give away his pillow and blanket, even if it meant a night spent exposed to the biting cold. “You at least have a father to complain to,” he said. “They don’t.”

But he was no less concerned about their spiritual state.

“Eventually, my Zeide sent many of the yesomim to Eretz Yisrael,” the Rebbe shares. “Later, he learned of the campaign of the anti-religious Zionist factions making concerted efforts to strip young immigrants of their Yiddishkeit.

“My Zeide couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t deal with the fact that he gave up so much to bring these children close to Torah in Romania and then, in Eretz Yisrael — der heilige Land — they should give it all up.”

His dual concern for the bereft and spiritually endangered orphans prompted Reb Eliezer Zusya to found the Chessed L’Avraham network of orphanages in Eretz Yisrael, which would provide Jewish orphans with material and spiritual sustenance. His son, Reb Yisroel Avrohom, continued that holy work on a communal and personal scale.

The doors to his humble apartment were flung open wide. “There were constantly people coming into our home,” the Rebbe remembers. “When Yidden came collecting money, my father would sit them down and offer them a coffee with mezonos. If a Yid would share that he was collecting money in order to pay for expenses for an upcoming wedding, my father immediately called for a bottle of schnapps and made a l’chayim.”

The Rebbetzin played an equal role. “My father didn’t write the checks. My mother did. Before writing a check she would say, ‘L’shem yichud Kudsha Brich Hu ushchintei… l’kayem mitzvas tzedakah, l’kayem mitzvas nasson titen…’

“Sometimes, a Yid would mention that he was making a chasunah and needed a certain sum of money. My mother would overhear and tell my father, ‘He has children in Eretz Yisrael. Let’s give him more so he can fly them in for the chasunah!’”

The Rebbe smiles. “That was what they argued about. Not how little they should give, but how much.”

After the Rebbetzin passed away, Reb Yisroel Avrohom’s son, Shmuel Mordechai, moved from Yerushalayim back to Boro Park so he could care for his father and manage all housekeeping matters that his mother had tended to.

“One year before Pesach, my brother was anxious,” the Rebbe says. “There was not nearly enough money in the family’s account to pay for all the Yom Yov needs.”

Then Reb Shmuel Mordechai received a call from a wealthy individual who said he would be bringing a very sizable amount of money for the Rebbe’s personal use. Sure enough, the following day, the man arrived and presented the Rebbe with a check, somewhere in the range of $100,000. “Rebbe,” he said, “this is for your tzarchei Pesach.” The money was meant for the Rebbe’s entire extended family.

“When my father came home later that day,” the Rebbe continues the tale, “he began to empty his pockets of all the various monies he “received.” The Rebbe explains that his father had many different pockets and had a very organized system for which money was inserted into which pocket.

“The whole time, my brother was waiting anxiously for the check. He needed to buy tzarchei Pesach!” Finally, the Rebbe produced the check and handed it to his son. “‘Take this money,’ he said, ‘and give 5,000 dollars to so-and-so, 10,000 dollars to so-and-so, and so on’… Until nearly the entire sum has been allotted to others.

“My brother was shocked. He said, ‘But Tatte, we need the money!’ My father just said, ‘Listen to me. Do as I say.’”

Reb Shmuel Mordechai obeyed his father, but he took the liberty of informing the wealthy benefactor of what happened to his generous donation. The following day, the man returned, indignant. “Rebbe!” he exclaimed, “I said this was for the Rebbe’s tzarchei Yom Tov!”

“Do you know what my tzarchei Yom Tov are?” the Rebbe responded. “My tzarchei Yom Tov, my most basic needs, are for others to have what they need.’”

Holy Eyes

“My father would say that the Torah uses the same word, ‘v’ahavta,’ in reference to loving a Yid — ‘V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha’ — and in reference to loving Hashem — ‘V’ahavta es Hashem Elokecha,” says the Rebbe. “He explained that the way to measure how great your ahavas Hashem is, is by looking at how great your ahavas Yisrael is. If you truly love a fellow Jew, then you must truly love Hashem.”

And, as his father before him, this all-consuming love extended far beyond the boundaries of his brethren’s physical needs, deep into their heilige neshamos.

“My father kuched for Yiddishe kinder, that they should live b’kedushah v’taharah,” says the Rebbe. “Wherever he went, he spoke about tzniyus and shemiras einayim. Years ago, when the main problem in this regard was television, he would constantly speak about the dangers of owning or watching television. Later, when it became technology and smartphones, he made that his focus.”

In 2012, the aged Rebbe even made a rare appearance at the Citi Field asifah, held to address growing concerns about the negative effects of Internet use. The Rebbe seldom spoke publicly but for the sake of his brethren’s kedushah — and the Honor of Hashem — he was willing to exert himself past his physical abilities and beyond his comfort zone.

This was part of a larger pattern, the Rebbe explains. “People came to my father for brachos,” he says, “and he would say ‘I can give you a brachah, but you have to give something in return. You need to be mekabel something in the area of kedushah. Give up your devices. Throw out your smartphone. Then, hopefully, my brachah will be effective.”

The primacy of shemiras einayim is deeply embedded in the Skulener tradition. The Rebbe shares a beautiful thought in the name of his late brother, Reb Shaya Yankel. “The Noam Elimelech in parshas Noach writes that every generation has its own unique mitzvah. He writes that his generation’s mitzvah is tzitzis.” The Rebbe looks up. “My brother said — and what comes after tzitzis? The commandment of ‘v’lo sasuru acharei levavchem v’acharei eineichem, And you shall not stray after your heart and after your eyes.’ If the Noam Elimelech’s generation corresponded with tzitzis, then our generation corresponds with the mandate to guard our eyes and hearts from engaging in that which they shouldn’t.”

The Rebbe shares another thought in the name of his brother. “Pesach is at the start of the spring, when secular society grows slack in the way they dress,” he says. “But this grants us the opportunity to be constantly shomer einayim. My brother would say that when we make a Shehecheyanu on Leil HaSeder, we should have in mind the mitzvah of v’lo sasuru.”

Like everything in Skulen, this approach comes by way of inheritance. “Toward the end of his life, my Zeide couldn’t see,” the Rebbe shares. “Someone once came to visit him and he let out a sigh, bemoaning the fact that he no longer had eyesight.”

The visitor sought to soothe the Rebbe, saying, “Rebbe — what do you need to see? Your seforim? You already know everything!”

But the Rebbe wasn’t comforted. “No! If I can’t see, then how can I fulfill the mitzvah of v’lo sasuru?!”

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he Rebbe that I sit across from exhibits no airs. The conversation he conducts is uplifting, but his language and manner are down-to-earth. And yet, I later learn, his life is defined by the same exaltedness that marked his ancestors; uncanny accounts of fulfilled brachos or strangely prescient statements accompany his regular interactions.

At the shivah for the late rosh yeshivah of Chaim Berlin, Rav Shlomo Halioua ztz”l, one of the children shared an incident that had occurred at the Adirei Torah event earlier that year. “My father came home and told me that he’s not sure who exactly he was sitting next to on the dais, but the man had ruach hakodesh.”

Rav Shlomo explained that his neighbor introduced himself as Tzvi Noach Portugal. Rav Shlomo, in turn, introduced himself. “Vuhs tut ihr, what do you do?” the Rebbe asked, to which Rav Shlomo responded, “I am a marbitz Torah in Chaim Berlin.”

“He then looked at me,” Rav Shlomo recounted to his family, “and said, ‘A marbitz Torah is marbeh chayim, one who spreads Torah adds life.’ And then he said it again, ‘A marbitz Torah is marbeh chaiym.’ He said it multiple times.”

The reason this was so chilling was because Rav Shlomo was extremely unwell at the time — but no one knew. The family kept his condition a secret. Yet the Rebbe repeatedly asserted that one who spreads Torah adds life. Somehow, the secret was known to him.

In another inexplicable episode, someone concluded a conversation with the Rebbe in his beis medrash and prepared to leave when the Rebbe suddenly asked, “How’s your daughter?”

“My daughter?” the man replied. “Baruch Hashem, she is doing well.”

He stepped out of the beis medrash and his phone rang. It was a Hatzalah EMT, informing him that his daughter had been involved in a car accident on Route Nine.

“These stories are not surprising to those of us who know what Skulen is all about,” a chassid explains. “The Rebbe lives entirely for Yidden. When you live for Yidden, you feel their tzarah.”

“One night I got a call from the Rebbe,” a close chassid shares. “He told me that he urgently needed ten thousand dollars by nine o’clock the following morning. I asked him what was going on, and he explained that he had come home at two a.m. and found a man waiting outside his home. The man shared that he was in dire financial straits and couldn’t afford tuition for his daughter’s schooling. The school told him that if he didn’t make a 10,000-dollar payment by the following day, his daughter would not be allowed to return to school.”

“So what did the Rebbe do?” the chassid asked.

“What did I do?” the Rebbe repeated. “I wrote out a check for ten thousand dollars!”

“Okay,” said the chassid, “so why do we need to raise ten thousand dollars now?”

“Because,” the Rebbe explained, “there isn’t ten thousand dollars in the account. I need to make sure to deposit the money by nine tomorrow morning so that the money can properly transfer to the man’s account.” The Rebbe further explained his line of thinking. “If he’s coming to me, that means he has no one else to go to. If he has no one to go to but to me, how can I say no?”

One of the chassidim who oversaw the building of the relatively new beis medrash shares how funding the project came with its fair share of frustration. Throughout the construction process, he faced a constant struggle to come up with money. At one point, the chassid turned to the Rebbe. “The Rebbe raises money for everyone!” he exclaimed. “The Rebbe raises enormous amounts of money! Why can’t the Rebbe raise money for his own beis medrash?’”

The Rebbe sighed.

“I grew up in a home,” he said, “where we don’t do anything for ourselves. I can ask for others. I can’t ask for myself.”

As part of his responsibility to oversee the beis medrash’s construction, this chassid made multiple attempts to arrange a meeting with a certain philanthropist. His efforts bore little success. One day, the Rebbe called him excitedly. “I got ahold of the Yid!” he said. “I met him at the airport and he offered me a ride home. I got a big check from him!”

“Really!” the chassid cried. “That’s amazing! We really need it!”

“We need it?” the Rebbe responded incredulously. “No, this is not for us! It’s for a yasom who is getting married soon. He needs money and baruch Hashem, I got it for him!”

The word “Ich” remains at home, the Rebbe’s father had said to his kallah as they set out to build a home together. Their children learned well.

Both in the pakod, as well as the pakadeti.

The material and spiritual wellbeing of their nation takes precedence over any sense of self.

To the House of the Fathers

For the Rebbe, so much of his avodah hinges on attaching himself to his father and grandfather — der tatte uhn der zeide. “When I first left home to attend yeshivah,” the Rebbe recalls, “my father gave me a brachah. Then he said, ‘gedenkt der tzurah of der Tatte, remember the image of my father.’”

And this, the Rebbe says, is the very focus of Pesach. “On Pesach, more than any other Yom Tov, we stress minhagim. We cling to the minhag avoseinu. Because Pesach is about the avos — the mesorah of the zeides and babbes.”

We are instructed to share the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim with our children — v’higadeta l’bincha — instilling future generations with the emunah endowed by the awesome revelations of Yetzias Mitzrayim.

But that’s not the only objective.

“V’higadeta,” the Rebbe says, “can be interpreted as sharing the root word of ‘megadim,’ which means ‘sweet delights.’ We have to make Yiddishkeit sweet for our children!”

The Rebbe shares a similar thought with regard to a pasuk found earlier in parshas Bo, which uses different terminology. “U’lemaan tesaper b’aznei bincha uben bincha,” says the pasuk, “And for the sake of telling your son and the son of your son.”

“The word ‘tesaper,’” says the Rebbe, “can also mean to ‘make shine’ — ‘saper’ derives from the same root as the Hebrew word for sapphire. We have to make Yiddishkeit shine for our children!”

Make it shine. Make it sweet. Do it for the children, just as our fathers did it for us.

The Rebbe shares one last thought. “When instructing us to bring the Korban Pesach, the pasuk says we must bring ‘seh l’beis avos, seh labayis — a sheep to the house of the fathers, a sheep to the house.’” (Shemos, 12:3)

The simple understanding of “seh l’beis avos, a sheep to the house of the fathers” is the formula of one sheep per family. But the Rebbe shares how it can be interpreted homiletically.

“The seh signifies Klal Yisrael,” the Rebbe explains. “On Pesach, Klal Yisrael must attach themselves to the beis avos — the mesorah of the zeides.” And, quoting the Apter Rav, the Rebbe shares how that act of linkage makes us worthy of receiving Mashiach. “If the seh returns to the beis avos, then Hashem will say in response, ‘It’s time to return the seh to its true Bayis, the Beis Hamikdash.”

In Skulen, it’s a promise that reverberates with special intensity. Because wherever they were located — be it in Communist Romania, Crown Heights, Boro Park, or Lakewood — the leaders at the helm of this dynasty have made it their mission to welcome in the wandering sheep of their nation.

And then, with overwhelming love for both the lost children and their waiting Father, they endeavor to close the chain, and link those orphaned souls back to the Tatte’s Home.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1057)