R’ Berel Shemtov Looks Back

By COLlive reporter

Tens of Chabad Shluchim from the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin are expected to come in to Detroit Friday morning for a weekend of inspiration.

Hosting the annual Midwest Regional Kinus, which will last for three days, will be Michigan’s Head Shliach Rabbi Berel Shemtov and his wife Batsheva.

At their modest home on W. Nine Mile Road in Oak Park, from where the local Chabad institutions were initiated, the senior Shliach took some time to speak with COLlive.com on Wednesday.

It has been 70 years since the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rebbetzin arrived in the Unites States, and Rabbi Shemtov sees himself as lucky enough to have witnessed the drastic change since.

“We take everything for granted,” he begins the conversation in a soft voice, often smiling and eager to see the reaction to his bold words.

“So many of us don’t realize how our generation is so different… When I was a bochur in England in the ’50s, we didn’t say Chitas,” he states and adds after a few moments, “… that’s right – no Chitas.”

He goes on to point out another reality of those times: “It was printed in Hayom Yom in 5703, but who read the hayom yom after the calendar expired?

“There were very little printed sifrei chassidus, there were no mafteichos, there were no official minhogei Chabad, no bochur put on Rabbeinu Tam Tefillin and there was no Chabad Kolel,” he recalls.

“The Rebbe started so many things and made them so much a part of our routine that we don’t realize that these things didn’t exist 60 years ago.”

With a large sign that will welcome the Shluchim to the city lying at his feet, he vividly remembers when Shlichus was a foreign concept and an international Kinus was not even a thought – not to mention a regional one.

“I was once looking in the mafteach (contents) of the Igros Kodesh and found a very interesting point,” Rabbi Berel Shemtov goes on to say.

“There were hundreds of entries for ‘Hafotzas Hamayonas Chutza’ just for the first 20 volumes,” he said.

“Out of curiosity, I looked up the mafteach of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Igros Koshesh (in Chelek 12) and was surprised to see that there was no entry at all!”

The Head Shliach says that “our generation is completely different than any other previous generation.”

“In one of his Igros Kodesh, the Rebbe writes clearly that these times are ‘Ani Lo Nivreisi Elo Leshamesh Es Koini,’ and refers to Hafotzas Hamayonas Chutzah,” he concludes.

Participating Shluchim at the Kinus will be hearing more fascinating insights from Rabbi Berel Levin, editor of the Igros Kodesh series of the Rebbe’s letters.

Levin, chief librarian and and archivist at the Library of Agudas Chasidei Chabad in Brooklyn, NY, will share how the publication of the Igros Kodesh came about and the “behind the scenes” of this amazing treasure.