New Book ‘The Mazkir’ Recalls the Life of Rabbi Leibel Groner

“The Mazkir – The Rebbe’s Personal Secretary, Reb Leibel Groner,” Vol.1, has been released.  The new book now available in English is translated and edited by Uri Kaploun.

COLlive presents exclusive excerpts from the book, now available in all Judaica stores.

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As an appetizer, here’s a sip or two of LeChaim:

Bring along your plate

The Rebbe once remarked to R. Leibel; “We are living in an era during which positive influences are being showered upon us from Above without limit. (The Rebbe emphasized his point by a gesture.) They don’t wait for anyone: they just keep on showering good things. They wait for one thing only (and here the Rebbe repeated his gesture) – that a person should bring along his plate and catch all the good things that are being poured and showered upon him. That’s what they’re waiting for!”

The first to know

          The following interesting recollection was once shared by R. Levi Baumgarten:

“One Sunday, some time before the birth of our second daughter, when my wife and I didn’t even know that she was pregnant, we stood in line ‘for dollars.’ Just before we reached the Rebbe, I asked my uncle R. Leibel to tell him that my wife’s birthday was on the following Thursday. Hearing this, the Rebbe handed my wife an additional dollar and wished her ‘an easy pregnancy and a healthy child. And as to the birthday, may this be a year of success.’

“Observing our obvious surprise, R. Groner expressed a question by his facial expression. I first shrugged my shoulders as if to say that I was clueless – but quickly caught the message, and nodded energetically to express my realization that we had been privileged to witness outright ruach hakodesh.

“My wife didn’t bother to visit the clinic because she had heard that the pregnancy would be easy and that the baby would be healthy. Only in the seventh month did she do so, at the request of her doctors.”

A sirtuk, Yekaterinoslav-style

One day in the early years of the nesius, the Rebbe expressed surprise at the fact that he had observed some married yungeleit who did not wear a sirtuk on Shabbos.

When R. Leibel, true to form, tried to argue that perhaps they found such a purchase too expensive, the Rebbe answered: “In Yekaterinoslav, people often wore a sirtuk with patches – one on the right, one on the left, and one in front – but it never occurred to anyone to exchange his sirtuk for a short jacket!”

1. Leibel pointed out that “in America, a patched garment is not considered Shabbosdik,” that is, fittingly respectful of Shabbos.

The Rebbe’s response: “And half a garment is Shabbosdik?! Tell the yungeleit that one can wear even a patched garment, so long as the Shabbos is respected by a long outer garment.”

“I felt sorry for the boy”

The Rebbe once shared his disappointment with R. Leibel about a certain boy who did not join in the public responses of Baruch Hu uvaruch shmo and Amen. He described the boy, and wondered why that was the case, and why none of the bochurim around him had reminded him to join in. The Rebbe even added: “The fact is that I even wanted to go across and remind him myself – but I didn’t, because that would have created turmoil. Besides, I felt sorry for the boy.”                    

“But I do know his address…”        

Every year, with the approach of Rosh HaShanah, the Rebbe would send out letters with his berachah for a good year to many and varied chassidim, as well as to many rabbanim and public figures from a wide range of circles, according to a mailing list that had been prepared by the Mazkirus.

It once happened that R. Leibel handed such a letter to the Rebbe for his signature, without knowing that the addressee had passed away during the past year.

When the Rebbe saw the name of the addressee, he said to R. Leibel: “He has passed away, and you don’t know his address – but I do know his address, and he too needs a blessing for a good year….”

“Duly received, and thank-you”

It once happened that the Rebbe showed R. Leibel a letter in which a chassid reported an innumerable quantity of positive activities that he had personally executed.

The Rebbe’s comment: “Is it possible that he did everything that’s listed here? Even an angel couldn’t manage to do it all! It is true that the neshamah of a mortal is superior to an angel, but when it is in a body it is limited by the constraints of a body!”

That said, the Rebbe took a pencil in hand and in his unbounded ahavas Yisrael wrote: Niskabel b’ito, v’tach – “Duly received, and thank-you.”

Reading thoughts

The following was related by R. Ami Paikovsky.

“R. Groner once told me, ‘Whenever I used to enter the Rebbe’s room, I sensed that he was reading my thoughts.’

“A friend who was with me asked him: ‘For example?’    

“R. Groner first offered us a few LeChaims and then said: ‘One day, when I entered the Rebbe’s room, I watched as he swiftly read one letter, then immediately read another letter at such an incredible speed that I thought to myself, How does he do it?

‘While I was still thinking and the Rebbe was still reading, he turned to me and said: “While I am opening the first letter, I look to see who wrote the second letter, and begin to think what he wrote there, and prepare an answer to his question.”

1. Ami Paikovsky continues: “That conversation took place at the Yom-Tovtable of the Second Evening of Sukkos, when I was a regular guest at the home of R. Groner. At that point, Rebbitzin Groner joined in the conversation and added her tangible backing to what had been said. ‘One day,’ she said, ‘while I was vacuum-cleaning, a thought crossed my mind: Why can’t the Rebbe begrudge me my husband for one hour a day, so that he can help me a bit?’ Sure enough, when my husband came home that day, he said that he had a message for me from the Rebbe: Please ask your wife not to meddle in my business…'”

“But they’ll never be lamdanim!”

A few hours after the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived in the US on 9 Adar II, 5700 (1940), at the official reception that was held in honor of his arrival, he announced the foundation of the Tomchei Temimim Yeshivah in New York. In practice, it began to function on Shushan Purim, 5700 (1940), in the Oneg Shabbos Shul. Only later did it move to the Brooklyn address that has become legendary – 770 Eastern Parkway. (The Rebbe Rayatz and his family had already settled there a few months earlier, and his beis midrash occupied the ground floor.)

The first six students to be enrolled at the fledgling Yeshivah included Yitzchak Dovid and Leibl Groner.

Their father’s step drew criticism: Lubavitch was not widely reputed as a focus of Torah scholarship. R. Mordechai’s critics warned him that “as graduates of Torah VaDaas they would become lamdanim,” serious Torah scholars – implying that this would not be likely if they were to study at Chabad. His reply was brief and certain: “I want them to grow up as yir’ei Shamayim,” with an awe of Heaven. (In fact, they grew up to become both lamdanim and yir’ei Shamayim.)

Experiencing ahavas Yisrael

1. Leibl once related: “One day, the Rebbe Rayatz directed that the class that occupied the classroom which later became the Mazkirus should be immediately moved elsewhere. Now, the study of the Rebbe Rayatz was situated on the floor above that room, but no one guessed at the reason for that move – until the surprising explanation eventually became known. It transpired that a few days earlier, the Rebbe Rayatz had heard the outcry of a young pupil downstairs: ‘Oy!’ He was so overcome by shock, for fear that something dangerous had happened to one of the pupils, that the pen fell from his hand.

“The outcry proved to be a harmless response to an innocent moment of mischief. At some time later, the Rebbe Rayatz’ pen again fell from his hand, this time from the sudden clatter of a bench that fell to the floor. And the pen fell a third time, when a lively childish outcry downstairs again made him fearful for the safety of the young pupils.

“His ahavas Yisrael was so intense that he could not bear the possibility that even the mere fingernail of a Jewish child should be harmed. And that was why he gave the order that that class of young pupils should be moved elsewhere.”

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