The Matzah and the Message

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Havlin is the rabbi of Ramat Shlomo’s Chabad community, a co-founder of Jerusalem’s Heichal Menachem library, and serves as the editor-in-chief of its publishing arm. He was interviewed by JEM in his home in January of 2011.

I first met him at the entrance examination I took for the famed Mir yeshivah of Jerusalem in 1967. Rabbi Nochum Partzovitz, or simply “Reb Nochum,” as he was known, was the head of the yeshivah. His style of scholarship was characterized by tremendous depth alongside meticulous attention to the language of a given Talmudic passage or commentary, to arrive at its true meaning. Thus he made a name as one of his generation’s greatest Torah geniuses, and crowds thronged to hear his lectures. In my third year at the yeshivah, I was able to hear them myself.

At around this time, Reb Nochum was diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disease. Still, despite his condition, he continued teaching as before. In the winter of 1971, he traveled to New York to visit some specialists there.

While there, he was hosted in the Boro Park home of Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Lazerson, a longtime friend who had been his study partner during the Second World War when the Mir yeshivah was evacuated and relocated to Shanghai, China. In America, Lazerson had become an ardent chasid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He would attend every one of the Rebbe’s farbrengens, rain or shine, and even on Shabbat, he would make the long trek from Boro Park to Crown Heights.

Rabbi Lazerson helped set up an appointment with the Rebbe for Reb Nochum and his wife and even accompanied them on the visit.

As soon as they entered his study, the Rebbe rose to greet them, and once they were seated, he asked: “Do you remember me?”

“Where would I know the Rebbe from?” asked a surprised Reb Nochum.

“Do you recall the time my father-in-law visited your parents’ home?” It was in 1932, and the Previous Rebbe was traveling to the Lithuanian town of Landarov (today Lentvaris), for the wedding of his youngest daughter, Shaina. On his way, and as a gesture of respect, he visited the rabbi of the nearby town of Trakai, Rabbi Aryeh Tzvi Partzovitz – Reb Nochum’s father.

“Yes! I was nine years old,” Reb Nochum reminisced. “My father asked the Previous Rebbe to bless me. And I remember that he was accompanied by two young men.”

“And one of those young men was myself. So you do remember me!” concluded the Rebbe.

Reb Nochum went on to bring up the subject of his health and asked that the Rebbe bless him, which he did, while also urging him to publish his writings and lectures.

“Now you have two blessings,” said the Rebbe, referencing the Previous Rebbe’s blessing from forty years earlier.

Reb Nochum had always held the Rebbe in high esteem, and during several conversations I had with him, he would express his respect for the Rebbe’s scholarship and leadership. But their meeting seemed to create an extra connection and a sense of mutual respect between them.

From then on, whenever Rabbi Lazerson went past the Rebbe – when the Rebbe would distribute honey cake before Rosh Hashanah or wine during the Kos Shel Bracha ceremony – the Rebbe would ask about Reb Nochum. And for the Rebbe’s seventieth birthday, just before Passover of 1972, Reb Nochum sent a letter with his blessings to the Rebbe.

By that time, I had come to New York to learn at the Chabad yeshivah at 770 and had gotten to know Rabbi Lazerson myself. Then, after Passover, before I went back home to Israel, I received word that Rabbi Lazerson wanted me to visit.

“I have something for you to bring to my friend, Reb Nochum Partzovitz,” Rabbi Lazerson began. “Before Passover each year, the Rebbe gives out matzah to a number of people. When I came to receive some, the Rebbe gave me an additional piece for Reb Nochum.’

“I was about to move on, but then the Rebbe stopped me. ‘And how is he?’ he asked. I replied that I hadn’t spoken to him lately, and only knew that he was quite ill.

“‘Does he still teach?’

“‘I believe that he does.’

“In response, the Rebbe declared firmly. ‘He should continue to do so! He should not stop!’”

And so, Rabbi Lazerson asked that I bring the matzah along with some wine he had received from the Rebbe after Passover to Reb Nochum.

Once in Israel, I knocked on the door of Reb Nochum’s house. At first, I was told that I couldn’t see him. But once I mentioned Rabbi Lazerson, Reb Nochum himself asked that I come inside.

Sitting down, I told Reb Nochum about my mission. When I recounted how the Rebbe had so definitively declared that he “should not stop” teaching, Reb Nochum seemed to become emotional.

He rose slightly and exclaimed: “Thank G-d, I did the right thing!”

He explained: “During the yeshivah’s Passover break, a prominent doctor from overseas came to see me. After examining me, he said that I needed to stop teaching for a month or two. He thought that might help me.

“‘I can’t do that,’ I told the doctor. ‘I don’t have a life without teaching Torah. If I continue to give my classes, perhaps I will live, and perhaps I won’t. But if I stop – then I will certainly die.’

“Still, I had a nagging thought that perhaps I should listen to the doctor. But now that I know what the Rebbe said, it’s clear to me; I’m glad I was of one mind with him!”

Reb Nochum went on to recall what the Rebbe had told him in their audience about publishing his classes. “The Rebbe saw far ahead,” he said with some pain in his voice. “Now I’m no longer up to doing it.”

Still, he continued to teach for several more years. And – although this happened after his passing – his lectures were eventually published, and I doubt there’s a rosh yeshivah today who doesn’t use them.

Reb Nochum then asked me how the Rebbe’s birthday had been commemorated. I mentioned that, in his public remarks, the Rebbe had quoted the Psalm: “The span of our life is seventy years, or, given the strength, eighty years,” and said that when a person reaches seventy, he must examine himself, and see whether there is anything he needs to “strengthen.” On a practical note, he requested that seventy-one new Chabad institutions be founded in the coming year, and that he would contribute ten percent of their expenses.

Reb Nochum was visibly moved by this. “There are some who say the Rebbe is Mashiach, although others disagree,” he remarked. “What I can say is that if there is someone worthy of being Mashiach in our time – it’s the Rebbe!”

I was surprised to hear this kind of talk from him, and immediately asked, “Why? What makes you say this?”

Reb Nochum explained. “There are many great Jewish leaders, saints, and scholars, but Maimonides calls Mashiach a “king.” Mashiach will be a great rabbi and a Torah sage, but he will act in a regal way. What you just related – the Rebbe speaking about acting with renewed strength, at age seventy, and launching seventy-one institutions in a year – that’s how a king acts!”