Child of a Future

Pinchas Menachem was the crown prince and the yeled sha’ashuim, the beloved child and object of delight, to a court of tens of thousands of chassidim. He was born in 1926, when the Imrei Emes was at the height of his influence, leader of the vast army of Gur and revered by wider Polish Jewry. After the passing of Rebbetzin Chaya Ruda Yehudis in 1922, the Imrei Emes married his niece Faiga Mintcha, daughter of his sister and brother-in-law, Rav Yaakov Meir and Esther Biderman, and she bore him this one child.

The 60-year-old Imrei Emes, whose every moment was precious, invested time in little Pinchas Menachem, learning with him privately and hiring special rebbeim for him. In the great Gerrer beis medrash, the mere sight of this child drew smiles from the most serious, intense chassidim; they would challenge little Pinchas Menachem to memorize Mishnayos, then reward him generously, seeing the promise he carried.

With the outbreak of World War II, the Imrei Emes was forced into hiding and exile, eventually arriving in Eretz Yisrael in the spring of 1940 with some family members, including his three remaining sons — Rav Yisrael and Rav Simcha Bunim, and the teenaged Pinchas Menachem — broken after losing the bulk of his chassidus and nearly every one of his grandchildren. (Yet his arrival was also the culmination of his dream: He’d been to Eretz Yisrael five times in the 1920s and ’30s, and encouraged his chassidim to buy properties in the Holy Land. In fact, Rav Simcha Bunim had been living in Eretz Yisrael for years before returning to Poland before the outbreak of the war.)

The Imrei Emes, broken in body and spirit, did not smile again after the war, with one exception: At the 1946 wedding of Pinchas Menachem, the badchan coaxed a smile from the Rebbe.

There was a future: The young prince, child of delight, had gotten his father to smile once more.

The kallah, Tziporah, was a daughter of Pinchas Menachem’s first cousin Rav Avraham Mordechai, the son of the Rebbe’s younger brother, Rav Moshe Betzalel Hy”d.

(Before finalizing the shidduch with his nephew, the Imrei Emes called in Tziporah’s brother, a bochur at the time, and asked what he was learning. Aryeh Alter replied that he was learning Maseches Shabbos, and the Imrei Emes farhered him on the entire masechta. The Rebbe declared that now that he had assessed the brother of the young woman, as recommended by Chazal, they could proceed.)

The bond between the Imrei Emes and his brother was such that in the tzava’ah, the will he wrote when he reached the age of 70, he named Rav Moshe Betzalel, whom he referred to as “the friend of my heart and soul, bound in spirit,” as his successor.

It was only after his arrival in Eretz Yisrael, with Rav Moshe Betzalel gone, that the Imrei Emes wrote a new will: “All this was written before the upheavals, but now that ‘panim chadashos has arrived here,’ I transmit the leadership to my son Rav Yisrael.”

The Imrei Emes’s brother was gone. His eldest son, Rav Meir Hy”d, had been murdered in Treblinka. His second son, Rav Yitzchak, passed away in Poland in 1934. Now, he looked to his third son, Rav Yisrael.

In later years, the Pnei Menachem would reflect on the term used by his father — panim chadashos ba’u lekan. The Gemara (Bava Kamma 96b) teaches that one who stole earth and fashioned it into a brick, has not acquired it through this change, since a brick can be converted back to earth. But if he stole a brick and crushed it into earth, he has acquired it, because, “hai levinta achariti hu (this is a different brick), upanim chadashos ba’u lekan (and a new entity has arrived here).”

“An entire brick had been crushed, a chassidus turned into dust,” the Pnei Menachem said, “and my brother the Beis Yisrael took that dust and planted in it once again, recreating what was.”

After the petirah of the Imrei Emes in 1948, Rav Yisrael — who became known as the Beis Yisrael of Gur — succeeded him as Rebbe, and Rav Pinchas Menachem went from being the Rebbe’s son to the Rebbe’s brother. It was a role that called for a unique sort of subservience and grace, and he adapted quickly. It was only in 1957 that he assumed the position of rosh yeshivah in Sfas Emes, teaching Torah to thousands of talmidim.

But if he found fulfillment in his work, his personal life was not without challenge. He and his wife had a special-needs child, Moshe Betzalel, at a time in which the medical community did not offer much by way of guidance, services of support. They were on their own with this son, who passed away in childhood.

In addition, Rebbetzin Faiga Mintcha lived together with them for 18 years after the passing of the Imrei Emes, in the small apartment in Yeshivah Sfas Emes. In later years, when people would express admiration for the Pnei Menachem’s children — sons and a son-in-law who stand tall in chassidus, learning and intelligence — Rav Pinchas Menachem would credit the mitzvah of kibbud eim, which comes along with a promise of blessing in this world.

In 1988, Rav Pinchas Menachem and his rebbetzin would endure an especially crushing blow when their fourth son, Rav Yehudah Aryeh Leib, lost his life in a car accident when he was just 28 years old, a bright flame extinguished in an instant. Rav Aryeh, who seemed destined to take his place among the great gaonim of the generation, left behind a young wife and child.

There was no relief from the pain; the Pnei Menachem would testify that the only way he survived those days was through immersion in Torah. He wrote a sefer at that time, called Torascha Sha’ashuai (“Your Torah is my desire”).

How to View the World

Rav Daniel Chaim Alter is the Pnei Menachem’s youngest child, born just a few months after the 1967 Six Day War. Along with the miracles experienced collectively by the country, Rebbetzin Tziporah Alter had endured a difficult pregnancy, and the doctors were unsure if her child would make it: At the bris, held in the week of Selichos, she asked her husband to give a name that spoke of Hashem’s kindness and the favorable judgement they had merited.

The child was named Daniel Chaim. Rav Pinchas Menachem, ever innovative, pointed out that the name has a gematria of 163, identical to the gematria of Faiga Mazia, the actual name of his recently departed mother.

Rav Daniel smiles when reminiscing about his early years.

“The melamed in cheder was teaching us that when it comes to the mitzvah of fearing one’s parents, the mother is listed first, because it’s natural for a child to fear his father, but I remember being bewildered by that. We loved our father so much that we couldn’t imagine relating to him any other way,” he tells me as I’m welcomed to his apartment in Jerusalem’s Minchas Yitzchak neighborhood ahead of his father’s 30th yahrzeit, to hear a story of about spirit, strength, and enduring inspiration.

“Later on,” he says, “we learned that not every home was like ours and not every tatte was like ours. I don’t recall him ever raising a hand, or even his voice toward us. He addressed us in a way that was gentle and humorous. It was only as we matured that we began to perceive the burning focus and drive that was hidden in each casual comment.”

Rav Daniel remembers once walking with his father when they saw municipal workers laying new pipes in the ground. The child stopped to look, his father waiting patiently. Then, as they resumed walking, Rav Pinchas Menachem remarked, “Tzinor, a pipe, has the same letters as the word ratzon, desire.”

“That was all Tatte said, but it elevated the entire experience, making it into a lesson that remained with me,” Rav Daniel explains. “Rather than preach, Tatte wove these ideas into casual conversation, teaching us how to view the world.”

Rav Pinchas Menachem once purchased a new tallis, but it turned out to be a size too big, the strings sweeping the floor as he walked. Someone pointed this out, and the Pnei Menachem sighed. “Yes, we have to become bigger,” he said, drawing a conclusion that had nothing to do with physical measurements or dimensions.

Rav Daniel describes a father who carried his greatness so naturally that he himself seemed unaware of it. Being the son and brother of rebbes was a biological technicality: Rather than entitle him, it obligated him.

When people would call the house, asking the Rosh Yeshivah to daven for them, he assumed that they were turning to him as sort of a gabbai to his father, since his apartment was just upstairs from the kever of the Imrei Emes.

“Abba would often go downstairs to daven by his father, being mazkir one talmid or another. It never occurred him that people were calling him because they actually wanted his tefillos or brachos.”

When funds became tight in the Alter home, the Pnei Menachem joined with a partner in opening a seforim store.

“Until that point, Tatte would go to the tish of the Beis Yisrael at Seudah Shlishis, but from then on, he started going to the tish on Friday night as well — the Friday night tish was geared to the balabatish oilem, people who worked all week and needed the extra boost, and now,” says Rav Daniel, “he felt that, although he was a rosh yeshivah, he was also included in that group.”

Later, when the Pnei Menachem became Rebbe, he would sometimes share concepts rooted in Kabbalah, something he had not done as a rosh yeshivah. But when he did, he always added a disclaimer, explaining that he did not actually learn Kabbalah: Rather, he explained, during the years in which he had worked in a seforim store, he had ample opportunity to look through diverse seforim, and some of the ideas he had seen then had remained with him. 

His Father’s Spirit

Rav Pinchas Menachem and Rebbetzin Tziporah Alter had seven children. Rav Yaakov Meir was followed by Esther, the wife of Rav Berel Lippel; Rav Shaul, former rosh yeshivah of Sfas Emes and rav of Kehillas Pnei Menachem; Rav Yehudah Aryeh Leib a”h; Rav Yitzchak Dovid; Moshe Betzalel a”h; and Rav Daniel.

There is a unique charm with which the “Pnei Menachem’s kinder” are blessed, a mix of cleverness and approachability; in the shiurim of the Pnei Menachem’s youngest son, that fusion lives on.

A knowledgeable speaker often dazzles by quoting an elaborate array of sources, but the truly gifted speaker does the opposite; he uses less words, his grasp of the subject such that he can find the shortest distance between complex ideas.

Over the course a day, Rav Daniel Chaim Alter, who serves as Rosh Yeshivas Pnei Menachem and rav of the beis medrash “Ari Shebechaburah” on a small street off Rechov Yirmiyahu in Jerusalem, delivers shiurim to all sorts of audiences: Daf Yomi in Bavli and Yerushalmi to members of his kehillah, a weekly Sfas Emes shiur in the Shaarei Chesed neighborhood, the very popular weekly Chumash/Rashi shiur with its global following, and of course, shiur klali in Yeshivas Pnei Menachem, where he serves as rosh yeshivah.

Even if the subject matter varies, the style is his alone. He speaks deliberately, pointedly, each word landing like a gavel in a quiet room, dancing between intricate halachic ideas and unsophisticated stories. All across the world, there are Yidden who count on his Torah to help them welcome the Shabbos, hearing, in his voice and style, an echo of his father.

The resemblance to his father goes beyond appearance and cadence; Rav Daniel Chaim reflects his father’s spirit.

In 2018, his rebbetzin, Hinda Rochel, passed away after a protracted illness. On her final day, even as the family was gathered at her bedside, her husband went to deliver the morning shiur — at her request. Over the preceding year and a half, he had often delivered the shiur coming directly from the hospital, his demeanor showing little, and that day was no different.

At her levayah, her husband’s older brother Rav Shaul paid tribute to his sister-in-law. “And during her last moments, her numbers stabilized while her husband was saying shiur. It was only when he returned to her bedside, after he had recited Nishmas and Eishes Chayil, that her pure soul left her. The Rebbetzin waited for her husband to come home from the beis medrash one more time….”

Torah, taking the edge off the throbbing pain.

During the shivah, thousands of talmidim came through his room. The remarkable memory, which is an Alter family trademark was put to use, Rav Daniel acknowledging each visitor with a personal comment or recollection, not taking, but giving, just like his father before him.

He has since remarried, teaching the Torah of comfort.

For Rav Daniel Alter, the wellsprings have burst open.

Six days a week, he says multiple shiurim, but it’s the shmuessen of Shabbos that draw the masses. Beis Medrash Ari Shebechaburah, named in memory of Rav Daniel’s brother, expands to welcome all sorts of listeners; and as diverse as is the audience, so are the sources: chassidus and mussar, Rishonim and Acharonim, halachah and stories.

Every Friday night, the parshah is opened and examined, as if for the first time, the shmuess opening with several unrelated questions, after which an original approach is presented, and the questions disappear.

At Shalosh Seudos, the scene repeats itself, but during those moments as Shabbos is ebbing, his tone is more introspective and pleading, a call for teshuvah throbbing beneath every word and idea.

The thirst for the Torah of Rav Daniel has led to the creation of a new institute called Machon Ohr Chodosh, in which these shmuessen are prepared for print and disseminated under the name Nitzotz Echad; the printed sheets have become cherished companions to Yidden across the globe, an audience that has discovered a fountain of oneg Shabbos rising from between its lines. Rav Daniel has also released a series of seforim called Chada Pilpalta, in which he addresses the sugyos in the weekly parshah, bringing the same approach to lomdus as he does to chassidus and mussar: a total, all-encompassing clarity.

To Hold Another’s Pain

In 1977, the Beis Yisrael was niftar, succeeded by the Imrei Emes’s second son, Rav Simcha Bunim, known as the Lev Simcha, and the new Rebbe’s younger brother transferred his allegiance once more.

The Beis Yisroel had been a father and mother to a broken people, rebuilding a world that had been left without children into a flourishing garden of Torah and chassidus. His brother and successor, though, had a different mission.

“My brother had soaring spiritual aspirations,” the Lev Simcha once proclaimed, “but how can chassidim be expected to learn with intensity and daven with fervor when they are collapsing under daunting financial burdens?”

Like his namesake, the Rebbe Rav Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, the Rebbe fused practical wisdom with a sensitive heart, ushering in a new era. He instituted takanos, the first of which being that parents could no longer purchase apartments for their children in Jerusalem or Bnei Brak. This way, young couples would be forced to settle in outlying areas such as Ashdod and Arad in the south and Chatzor in the north, easing the burden on their parents.

The Rebbe made it clear just how seriously he took these takanos when a wealthy mechutan asked for permission to purchase an apartment in Jerusalem for his children. “After all,” he explained, “the Rebbe knows that I can afford it.”

The Rebbe answered succinctly. “If you’re so wealthy, then you can go buy yourself a different Rebbe,” he said.

The Lev Simcha brought practical relief to thousands of families, his innovations becoming standard practice well beyond the chassidus he led — and this way, he enabled his chassidim to focus on spiritual growth, living up to the aspirations of the Beis Yisrael.

And then, in the summer of 1992, he was niftar, and the chassidim felt orphaned once more, as if the hands supporting them had been removed. Who would take care of them now?

“Even during the shivah for my uncle, the Lev Simcha, I don’t think my father expected to become Rebbe,” Rav Daniel Chaim recalls. The Lev Simcha’s only son, the current Gerrer Rebbe, felt that Rav Pinchas Menachem should lead the chassidim, and there were older chassidim eager to connect with the last son of the Imrei Emes, a bridge to a world that was. “But my father had to think about it. And when he ultimately accepted the rebbisteve, he said, ‘Oib Rebbe, az lechumrah, if we will be Rebbe, then we are doing it as a stringency,’ — meaning to increase the workload and obligation.”

Gur had a new rebbe, the third son of the Imrei Emes.

Rav Meir’l of Amshinov, it is said, foretold that the Imrei Emes would merit an unusual blessing — that all three of his sons would be blessed with the gifts needed to serve as Rebbe, one after the other — because of the selflessness in his original plan of leaving the rebbistive to his own brother.

But there was a question. The Imrei Emes’s young son, the pride of the chassidim of old back in Poland, the boy who had risen to become a rosh yeshivah whose shiurim were marked by brilliance and clarity — could he serve a rebbe, trained to listen, to feel, to hold the pain of another?

The new Rebbe answered the question.

“Not long after he assumed the mantle of leadership, my father spoke with one of his colleagues, a prominent rebbe,” Rav Daniel Chaim relates. “This rebbe wished my father mazel tov, and my father asked, without a trace of irony, ‘Is it customary to wish mazel tov to one who becomes an eved, a servant?’ ”

Rav Daniel Chaim recalls how his father viewed the position: “In the first year of his leadership, the gabbaim of the beis medrash came in before Selichos to discuss the timing with him; what time was best for the Rebbe? My father began to think out loud, calculating what time the last bus was from Geula to Ramot, and how long Selichos would take, wanting to ensure that every chassid could take a bus home after it was over. They had been asking one question: When did the Rebbe, whose tefillos were meant to carry all of them, feel the hour was most auspicious? But he heard a different question, answering it as if they had asked him a practical gabba’us question. He was there not to take, but to give.”

The brilliance of a rosh yeshivah, applied not just to a complex Rambam, but to the burdens of another.

One Erev Shabbos, the new Rebbe received a kvittel, listing the name of a father who had been injured, and that of his son, who had suffered severe burns.

After studying the kvittel for a moment, the Rebbe addressed the gabbai. “How is it that the father was injured in an accident and the child was burned? Likely, they were traveling somewhere for Shabbos, bringing hot chicken soup along with them, and when the accident occurred, the soup must have spilled on the child, burning him.”

The Rebbe gave precise instructions to the astonished gabbai. “Call back and give them the message that a burn caused by chicken soup must be treated differently than a burn caused by hot water.” Only then did he give his brachah.

One night, a young girl, the daughter of Gerrer chassidim, woke up and grew frightened when she realized her parents were not home. The parents, certain that she would remain sleeping, had gone to attend to a quick errand, but the seven-year-old girl didn’t know that and panicked, so she did the only thing she could thing of: She opened the phone-book, looked up the number of the Rebbe, and phoned his home.

The Rebbe himself answered, and the girl identified herself, telling him that her parents were not home and she was scared.

The Rebbe spoke softly. He asked about school and friends, then offered to tell her a story. When she was calm, he assured her that her parents would be home momentarily and hung up.

A few minutes later, the parents came home, dismayed that their daughter had taken up several minutes of the Rebbe’s precious time. The next evening, the father waited in line to go into the Rebbe and apologize.

When he entered the Rebbe’s room, the Rebbe greeted him with a broad smile. “Es iz a gitte chinuch, you are raising her well,” the Rebbe said. “She knows that when there’s a problem, you call the Rebbe.”

“Even as Rebbe,” Rav Daniel Chaim remembers, “my father wanted to maintain his learning schedule, and he spent the morning at home, engrossed in the sugya. The phone was constantly ringing, of course, chassidim from all over the world calling for brachos and advice, and we finally prevailed upon our father to allow a bochur in to handle the calls.”

Even so, if the bochur didn’t answer the phone as soon as it rang, the Rebbe would answer himself, unwilling to let a Yid wait. Along with that, the bochur’s role was limited; the Rebbe would not allow the meshamesh to attend to his personal needs or to serve him.

“If the Ribbono shel Olam wanted a person to be served by another,” he would say, quoting Rebbe Henoch of Aleksander, “then He would have created man with a meshamesh.”

Heartbreak and Hope

“There was a term that my father used — a rebbishe krechtz, and when he became Rebbe, I understood it,” Rav Daniel says. “When a chassid shared his problems, my father would lean forward, his face lined with empathy and concern, his entire posture telling the chassid, ‘I am completely yours.’ ” In the afternoon, he would leave his apartment for the beis medrash, filled with vitality and energy. “And then he would return at night, after hours of receiving chassidim, and he was drained and depleted, his shoulders slumped with the suffering and pain of others.”

The Pnei Menachem had suffered devastating loss, and now, he would use those experiences to comfort others.

In a letter to a bereaved family, he recalled how his son Rav Aryeh had been hospitalized for several weeks after the accident that claimed his life. And in that period, HaKadosh Baruch Hu allowed more chesed to be performed through him, increasing his zechuyos. “So, too,” the Rebbe concluded, “all the tefillos that were offered on behalf of your child are cherished in Shamayim, an eternal favor generated through your beloved child.”

Late at night, when the waiting room was finally quiet, the Rebbe would remain in his room, the kvittlach of the afternoon and evening forming a heap on his table, slips of paper carrying heartbreak and hope.

It was then, in the stillness and solitude, the Rebbe would reach for the pile and start to read the kvittlach all over again, and this time, he would allow his pain to come forth; for several minutes, he would weep softly, his “oy, oy, oy” audible outside in the hallway, a Yid feeling along with his brothers.

One evening, a chassid came in to the Rebbe, and emboldened by the expression of love and compassion on the Rebbe’s face, he unburdened himself, sharing the extent of the difficulties he faced.

The Rebbe listened intently, then gently pushed the Tehillim that was on the table in front of him toward the chassid. “This is for you,” the Rebbe said.

“But I want the Rebbe to daven for me,” the chassid pleaded.

“We live in a world of protektziya, where a person feels like they need to have connections with the right people to get a child into school or to find a good job, so we lose sight of reality.” The Rebbe told him. “We forget that by the Ribbono shel Olam, there is no such thing as protektziya, and every single person has the same right to ask Him for help, you just like me.”

The Rebbe indicated the waiting room filled with people. “Every day, they come here, because they don’t realize that they can go directly to the Eibeshter and get help on their own. Take the Tehillim,” the Rebbe said gently. “Take it with you, and may your life be filled with good.”

The Rebbe was an eved to thousands, and always fully focused on the one person standing before him.

Before Rosh Hashanah, a chassid came from England, accompanied by his young son. He proudly informed the Rebbe that the son had mastered most of Seder Zera’im and was ready to be tested on the material.

The Rebbe smiled warmly and asked the boy a question.

The boy was silent, visibly uncomfortable, and he told the Rebbe that there was one small section within the Seder that he had not yet learned.

Rosh Hashanah passed, then the Aseres Yemei Teshuvah and Yom Kippur. There were tefillos and tishen and a stream of chassidim flowing through the Rebbe’s room. After Yom Kippur, the British chassid came to gezegen zich, to receive a parting brachah before returning home.

In an instant, the Rebbe remembered their last interaction.

“I asked my son to farher you on Zera’im,” the Rebbe told the boy, “and he was very impressed with how well you knew it. I apologize again for the question I asked,” the Rebbe said, then switched to English to say, “It was my mistake!”

Only when he was certain that the boy felt good did the Rebbe give them his brachah.

The Rebbe would often say over how his father, the Imrei Emes, had asked if anyone remained in the waiting room one night when it was already very late.

Seeing the Rebbe’s fatigue, the meshamesh assured him that that there were only fremdeh Yidden — outsiders, not Gerrer chassidim — left.

The Imrei Emes was bothered by both the answer and the term. “A fremdeh Yid?” he asked sharply.

When I was a bochur learning by Rav Dovid Soloveitchik, I remember hearing two stories. One was from a prominent Brisker gabbai tzedakah, active in helping many of the yungeleit in yeshivah make it through the month. He had no connection with chassidim, he conceded, but he still made his way into the room of the Gerrer Rebbe at least once a month, because the Rebbe greeted him warmly, encouraged him in his mission, and gave him a generous donation.

Another incident involved a group of bochurim who were having issues with their baal dirah, the landlord who rented them the apartment. Since he was a Gerrer chassid, one of these boys had the temerity to share his grievances with the Gerrer Rebbe, who listened and assured the American bochur that he would take care of the issue, which he did.

I share these stories with Rav Daniel, who nods — not a gesture of surprise, but of recognition, as if the stories are typical. No Yid is a fremdeh, and if a Yid is facing a problem, whatever it may be, then that problem is not a fremdeh either.

The Pnei Menachem was responsible for thousands of chassidim, but he bent his shoulder low to assume a larger burden as well — that of being a manhig Yisrael.

He worked with Rav Shach to restore peace in the ranks of the Agudas Yisrael party. After a complicated meeting between the two, the Ponevezher Rosh Yeshivah expressed admiration for the Gerrer Rebbe, whom, he said, wanted precisely the same thing as he did.

One of Rav Shach’s attendants pointed out that from the conversation, it had seemed that they had different viewpoints. “It is true,” Rav Shach conceded, “that in practical terms, we have diverse approaches, but his goal is the same as mine — kevod Shamayim and what is best for Klal Yisrael. That is someone I can work alongside.”

With a Good Eye

Haman had an ayin ra’ah, willing to give all his money away to destroy men, women and children of a nation he loathed. Mordechai Hatzaddik countered this with tovas ayin, instructing the Yidden, “leich kenos,” to gather together as one. And when that achdus achieved victory, he instructed us to commemorate it with mitzvos that underscore ayin tovah — mishloach manos ish lerei’eihu, increasing friendship, and matanos l’evyonim, gifts even to those who are not ordinarily seen as qualified recipients. And in Shamayim, they react to this by opening the gates for us, responding to kol haposhet yad, anyone who extends a hand in tefillah of teshuvah. (Pnei Menachem, Purim)

If there was a single thread that animated the Pnei Menachem’s Torah and derashos, it was a call for ayin tovah, to view others with kindness and favor and wish good upon them. One night, Rav Daniel relates, his father had a dream in which he encountered his deceased uncle, Rav Mendel of Pabianice Hy”d, who had been murdered by the Nazis.

The Pnei Menachem bemoaned the intensity and magnitude of the personal problems that he was seeing each day, the stream of tzarasan shel Yisrael, asking his uncle if there was a solution.

The Rav of Pabianice explained the reason for the suffering.

“Once, if a Yid faced a personal challenge, the whole shtibel felt his pain. People were bound heart and soul, and the tzaros of one impacted all of them. And therefore, harsh gezeiros were averted, because even if an individual was facing a decree, there was no reason to punish the whole chaburah. But once people became selfish, no longer carrying the pain of others on their hearts as if it was a personal tragedy, that source of merit disappeared, too.”

No More Me

According to the Sfas Emes, Hashem prefers to rest His presence with the lowly and humble. This is why purity comes with a cedar and hyssop, teaching us that one who stood tall as a cedar must humble himself like an ezov — a hyssop — to be cleansed. Now, the end of the month of Adar is the right time for this, because the word Adar reflects Hashem’s promise to live among us — “Adur beineichem” —  and with regard to a haughty person, we are taught that Hashem and he cannot reside together. By the Parah Adumah, all the shiflus, the humility, comes together, allowing us to live with Hashem…. (Pnei Menachem, parshas Parah)

I hesitate before asking the next question, unsure how it will be understood in the world of Kotzk and Ger, where the supernatural and wondrous is viewed as distraction. Is it true that the Pnei Menachem seemed to be bidding farewell to this world, giving indications of his imminent departure in the days before his petirah?

Yes, Rav Daniel nods quickly, it is absolutely true.

From Chanukah on, the Rebbe seemed to be slipping away. Until that point, he had worn a silken beketshe only on Shabbos, but in the second half of that winter, he started to wear it during the week as well. “As if,” Rav Daniel reflects, “he was preparing for a world of Shabbos, and he was more in that realm than this one.”

Rav Daniel and his older brother, Rav Shaul, would eat the Shabbos seudos with the Rebbe. “And more than once we noticed that, after filling up his kos for Kiddush, he kept pouring, not realizing that the wine was just spilling over. He was clearly somewhere else.”

In the weeks before his petirah, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were rocked by a wave of terrorist attacks, with many lives lost. The Rebbe was shattered by these events, saying that he simply did not have the strength to endure Yiddishe tzaros. On Taanis Esther, he wrote a letter of chizuk to the chassidim, and in it, he made a request:

Let us leave behind all the accounts and the score-settling between us; we shall uproot the sinas Yisrael that is within us, and we shall increase in the quality of kindness and goodness….

The letter ended with an expression of hope that the tefillos offered on the auspicious day would evoke heavenly compassion. Slated to be released in the next day’s Hamodia newspaper, the letter was sent off to the editor — but late that night, the Rebbe himself phoned the editor and asked if he could add a line. He wanted to be mesayeim, to conclude, on a positive note, and he added a few more words:

We are confident that we will see the fulfillment of “Ki lo yitosh Hashem amo, v’nachalaso lo ya’azov, For Hashem will not cast off His people, nor will He forsake His heritage.” (Tehillim 94:14).

Later in the week, when the Rebbe was already gone, someone made the connection between the closing line in that farewell letter and the words of Rashi. The Gemara (Berachos 31a) teaches that a person should not take leave of his friend from an atmosphere of meaningless conversation or frivolity, but rather, they should part through a discussion of matters of halachah. Rashi gives several examples, suggesting a pasuk such as “Ki lo yitosh Hashem amo” as a fitting farewell.

Torah and nechamah. Comfort and truth, truth and comfort.

That was the Pnei Menachem’s leave-taking.

Generally, it is considered better to perform a mitzvah by yourself than through a shaliach, but mishloach manos is an exception. It is optimal to send it al yedei shaliach, through a messenger. Why? Mordechai Hatzaddik revealed the depth of the mitzvah of ahavas Yisrael, bringing Yidden to a level in which every individual perceived that there was no “self” — my friend and I are one because there is only the Ribbono shel Olam, He is the only reality, and we are all just extensions of His will, trying to fulfill our mission. There are no mechitzos on Purim, so the intentional use of a shaliach symbolizes that there is no more “me.” There is just Him. (Pnei Menachem, Purim)

At the tish on that final Purim, the Pnei Menachem repeated a vort about ayin tovah, one he had shared at the very first tish he led after becoming Rebbe four years earlier. Rav Daniel accompanied his father home from the tish, and once in the apartment, he used the opportunity to be mazkir the mother-in-law of a friend of his. The Rebbe spread his arms apart. “Betten oif zich, to ask for oneself, for an individual?” he asked in a tone of wonder. “Betten oif Klal Yisrael!”

That night, the Rebbe didn’t prepare negel vasser for the morning, as he usually did. Rav Daniel shares this information in measured tones, neither raising nor lowering his voice, unblinking as he continues telling the story. “And Tatte went to bed, but he did not get up in the morning, and at that moment a hole formed in my heart and it has yet to be filled.”

And it takes me a moment to process what he has just said.

No sigh. No release of pent-up emotion. A courteous nod, a quick brachah as he rises and he takes his umbrella, heading to the elevator. Outside, a car waits to drive him to the yeshivah, where he’s about to say shiur, the words “a hole formed in my heart” echoing behind him as he turns to the sugya of “Avid Inish Dina l’Nafshei.”

Torascha sha’ashuai, like his father before him.

Ki lo yitosh Hashem amo, v’nachalaso lo ya’azov. 

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1102)