Reb Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn 
5640/1880 - 5710/1950
Midnight had passed ten minutes before. There was a resonant ring of the doorbell.
"They're agents of Tcheka!" he declared, as if expecting them.
The dining-room door burst open, revealing two men in civilian clothing, followed by a troop of uniformed armed guards.
"We are Tcheka agents! Where's Schneersohn?" they barked.
The dreaded Soviet secret police (Tcheka) had come to arrest the Lubavitcher Rebbe!
The Chabad Legacy
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn had been acknowledged leader of the Chabad Chassidic movement ever since the passing of his renowned father, Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber, known as the "Rebbe RaShaB," in 1920. Chabad (standing for Chochmah, Binah, Daas - the three elements of the intellectual process) is the "intellectual" branch of Chassidism founded by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), youngest disciple of the Great Maggid of Mezeritch who succeeded the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the movement. His son, Rabbi Dov Ber (the "Middle Rebbe"), was the first to settle in Lubavitch ("Town of Brotherly Love" in Russian), which remained Chabad's center under his distinguished successors, Rabbi Menachem Mendel (the "Tzemach Tzedek"), Rabbi Shmuel ("MaHaRaSh") and the Rebbe RaShaB.
The Rebbes of Chabad-Lubavitch were always known for their concern for both the material and spiritual welfare of all Jews. They had been active in establishing Jewish agricultural settlements and later a large textile factory which provided thousands of Jews with livelihood. Since the first Chassidic aliyah to Israel in 1778, they maintained a widespread campaign to raise funds for the Chassidic immigrants there, and Rabbi Dov Ber had re-established the Ashkenazi community in Hebron by sending his followers there. The Tzemach Tzedek was especially active in a secret and highly perilous campaign to prevent Jewish children from being enlisted into the Russian army and to save those already enlisted (the so-called "Cantonists"). He and later his son, the MaHaRaSh, and grandson, the RaShaB, were all active along with other gedolim of the time in interceding with high-ranking Russian ministers and officials, and other influential circles in Russia and abroad, to prevent or alleviate persecutions, pogroms, discriminations and economic problems of the Jewish masses.
Introduction to Public Service
Small wonder, then, that Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak was introduced to this tradition of public service early in life. On his fifteenth birthday, his father took him to the Ohel (burial place) of the Tzemach Tzedek and MaHaRaSh, and in front of the open Aron HaKodesh (Holy Ark) of the adjoining shul declared:
"I hereby offer my son as a bound sacrifice (Akeidah) just as our father Avraham did!"
Bursting into tears, he turned to his only son and said:
"Before our holy ancestors, I hereby establish with you a solemn covenant. From today onwards, I give into your hands the duty of serving the Jewish public, attending to their needs both material and spiritual."
For many hours, the RaShaB gave his son a broad outline of the 140 years of public service the Chabad Rebbes had devoted to the Jewish people, emphasizing especially their extraordinary mesiras nefesh (self-sacrifice).
"Only through firmest determination and strength of mind, without any compromise, can one be a true and conscientious servant of the public," he stressed. "Mesiras nefesh means: This is the way it has to be - no other way!"
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak learned his lesson well. At that tender age of fifteen, he became his father's private secretary and right hand man, representing his father even then at all-important communal conferences. After his marriage in 1897, his father named him Dean of the new Yeshivah Tomchei Temimim - a daring innovation to counteract the winds of secularism, then blowing in the Jewish street by establishing the first formal Chassidic yeshivah for teenaged young men where study of Chabad philosophy was incorporated as an integral third of the daily curriculum. Later events - after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 - were to brilliantly vindicate this courageous innovation as the thousands of Temimim who passed through the yeshivah in its first two decades became the Rebbe's brave and devoted soldiers in his battle to maintain Yiddishkeit in the U.S.S.R.
Even before the Revolution, the Rebbe's work was not without danger. Five times he was briefly imprisoned by the Czarist authorities, and attempts were even made upon his life by radical assimilationists who resented his energetic activities to strengthen Yiddishkeit. False libels from these same sources subjected him to occasional questionings and harassment by the local police. But his solemn fifteenth-birthday promise and his intense love for his people did not let this disturb his participation in his father's sacred work.
War and Upheaval
World War I wreaked incredible chaos in Jewish life. The Czar's anti-Semitic uncle, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Russian Army, blamed his serious military setbacks on the local Yiddish-speaking Jewish population in Poland, Lithuania and White Russia, the areas of battle, accusing them of being a fifth column. The defenseless Jews were expelled from their homes and forced to seek refuge deeper within Russia.
As the battlefront approached Lubavitch, the RaShaB and his family evacuated to Rostov-on-Don in Southern Russia. There they witnessed the disastrous chaos that engulfed Russia as it experienced successively defeat, revolution and the fateful October Revolution in 1917. The resultant civil war between the Bolsheviks' Red Army and the anti-communist White forces brought immense suffering to the Jewish population, who were cruelly massacred and pillaged by the White armies and related bandit gangs, while their possessions were confiscated by Bolshevik thugs in the name of the proletariat.
The RaShaB and his son were very active in organizing relief for the many thousands of refugees, supplying them also with matzos, tefillin and tzitzis, which were all in short supply, and specially printing siddurim (Nusach Ashkenaz and Nusach Ari), Gemaros, and other basic sefarim required for Torah-study. But the situation progressively deteriorated. Money lost its value, wealthy Chassidim who had helped finance these activities had their fortunes confiscated, communications broke down completely and travel became hazardous. Under such conditions there was a limit to how much they could help.
The Bolsheviks entered Rostov in 1920. At his Purim farbrengen (Chassidic gathering) shortly after, the RaShaB declared: "I cannot bear them; I cannot remain with them close by!" A few weeks later he passed away.
Conditions worsened considerably - famine, typhus epidemics, and extreme poverty. As the Bolsheviks gradually consolidated their rule, they began to actively persecute religion. Jewish life had been drastically disrupted by the war and subsequent chaos: mikvaos and shuls had fallen into disrepair and often could no longer be used, the Jewish educational system of chadarim (elementary schools) and yeshivos (for older students) had been seriously disrupted and each town's Jewish aid-institutions that cared for the sick and needy had become impoverished or ceased to function. The flourishing Jewish life of pre-World War Russia could be reconstructed only with the greatest of difficulty.
Countering the Yevsektzia
A new complicating factor was the Yevsektzia - the "Jewish Section" of the Communist party. A few hundred wild young men who had joined the revolutionary movements against the Czar, or jumped on the Bolshevik bandwagon after the Revolution, seized the initiative. Although freedom of conviction and religious practice was officially guaranteed in the new Soviet constitution, the Yevsektzia went much further than their non-Jewish comrades in their attempts to eradicate religion, conducting vile smear-campaigns against prominent rabbis and religious Jews generally, denouncing mitzvos as primitive superstitions, circumcision as barbarous. They would seize shuls and convert them into youth-clubs or "Halls of Culture," condemn mikvaos as dangerously unsanitary, and Jewish education as clericalist indoctrination of innocent youth.
As hostilities ceased and material conditions improved somewhat around 1923, many Torah-scholars and their disciples fled the country. Not so the Lubavitcher Rebbe. "The Schneersohns don't run away!" he had once told a Czarist police officer who demanded guarantees that he would not evade arrest. The only significant group of learned Jews to remain in Russia en masse were the Lubavitcher Chassidim - including the thousands of ex-Temimim, and prominent rabbis and communal leaders in scores of cities.
The improving material conditions enabled the Rebbe to continue in a more organized fashion the colossal task of reconstructing Jewish life. Sending emissaries to visit virtually every Jewish settlement in the Soviet Union to arouse opinion for organizing chadarim, the Rebbe established a vast network of underground cheder-schools for children. If local Jews could not be found to act as Torah-leaders, he would send his own Chassidim. In either case, their salaries were usually paid from his central fund, set up by borrowing large sums from individuals who had somehow managed to retain some wealth, and by appeals to Jewish aid-organizations in the West. From the same fund he financed an impressive range of activities including several yeshivos for older students, repairs and reconstruction of mikvaos for women, salaries for rabbis and lecturers, Torah study-groups in the shuls each morning and evening, funds to enable Jews who kept Shabbos to buy machines and merchandise to work from home and keep their own hours, and a special legal office to contact renowned lawyers to fight against illegal takeovers of shuls and other Yevsektzia excesses.
Teaching Torah in the Soviet
In the tradition of the earlier Rebbes of Chabad-Lubavitch, who had always encouraged Jews to settle on the land (or engage in other stable livelihoods), Reb Yosef Yitzchak arranged with the American Joint to finance establishment of Jewish agricultural settlements in the Ukraine. His beneficial activities in this area were even commended by the Soviet Government. He was able to establish cheder-schools in these settlements and supplied the villagers with tefillin, mezuzos and other Jewish needs.
As conditions became more dangerous, few could be found willing to risk the hazardous occupation of teaching in the chadarim. Hundreds of his Chassidim assumed the responsibility. Many were imprisoned and sent to labor-camps or into exile in remote areas, but other Chassidim soon came to replace them. The vast scope of the Rebbe's work reached a point where, although conducted in strictest secrecy, it could no longer remain concealed from prying eyes.
In the early years of his leadership, while still in Rostov, a group of Tcheka agents had burst into his shul where he was leading his Chassidim in prayer on his father's yahrzeit. He calmly concluded his prayer, paying no attention to their coarse threats. They informed him that they were well-aware of all his activities and that he must cease immediately. "My activities," he replied, "are perfectly legal according to Soviet law. I see no reason to stop them."
One of his inquisitors pointed a revolver at him. "This little 'toy' has made many a man change his mind!"
"No," retorted the Rebbe. "This little toy can intimidate only a man of many gods who has but one world. I, however, have one single G-d and two worlds - this world and the next - no, this toy cannot impress me!"
Relocation in Leningrad
He was forced to leave Rostov, however, and he settled in Leningrad in 1924. His spacious apartment in the center of the city took the place of the Lubavitch of old. Trainloads of Yiddish-speaking Chassidim in traditional garb, from White Russia and the Ukraine, would come to hear the Rebbe's maamorim (Chassidic discourses) and meet him in yechidus (private audience to request advice, spiritual or material); communal workers and his emissaries would come to discuss their work to strengthen Yiddishkeit.
The Yevsektzia and Tcheka became increasingly alarmed. They received countless reports of how traditional Jewish life was beginning to flourish anew, how cheder-schools were mushrooming at a rapid pace, how many Jews previously resigned to an enforced change in their religious life were becoming encouraged to return to practice of at least some mitzvos. They were amazed at the high degree of systematic organization of these activities, which reached to the furthest corners of Russia, even the oriental Jewish communities of Georgia, Daghestan, and Bukhara, successfully organizing school-networks and raising the level of Jewish practice.
Everything pointed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was the only Torah-leader of national stature remaining in the U.S.S.R., had a large following of devoted Chassidim eager to carry out his every wish, and wielded tremendous influence over thousands of other Jews who, while not his Chassidim, admired him for his personal qualities and splendid achievements. He also conducted a widespread correspondence, receiving vast quantities of mail from throughout the U.S.S.R. and from abroad. And he was known to be fearless and determined.
The final straw was his outspokenly negative stand on the plan to call a conference in Leningrad of all Jewish communities in Russia. Initiators of the plan were leaders of the Leningrad community - assimilated Jews who wanted to form a representative body for Russian Jewry on the lines of the French Consistoire and the British Board of Deputies, where the more "cultured" Jews would have the say. They managed to persuade some rabbis that such a conference would be a useful opportunity for coming to terms with the new conditions of Jewish life under the Soviet regime. The Rebbe saw in the strange support of the Yevsektzia for this conference a sinister plot to undermine Yiddishkeit from an official Jewish platform. He organized a strong opposition to the Conference, sending letters to all rabbis and communal leaders to inform them of the reasons for his unequivocal stand.
This enraged the Yevsektzia no end. They decided it was high time to produce the hefty file they had accumulated on the Rebbe's "criminal" activities. Early Wednesday morning, 15 Sivan (June 15) 1927, the Rebbe was arrested.
"He Viewed Them as Utterly Insignificant"
Immediately upon his arrival in the dreaded Spalerna prison, the Rebbe determined not to let himself be intimidated by his captors, nor show any sign of subordination to them. Not only in religious matters but even in other aspects, he decided to view them as utterly insignificant. It was this firm attitude that enabled him to withstand the eighteen and a half days of intense suffering he experienced.
His captors stopped at nothing to bring him to his knees. He was constantly threatened with the worst punishments; he was cruelly beaten, denied urgently-needed medical aid, interrogated through entire nights, made to stand almost twenty-four hours in a totally dark, vermin-infested cellar, up to his knees in foul-smelling mud, with no place to lean and large rats scampering about him. At his first interrogation he was informed that he was to be shot within twenty-four hours. "Pray for your father that he may stay alive," a highly-placed official told the Rebbe's daughter next morning.
Yet the Rebbe did not waver. Informed on his arrival that he may not keep his tefillin, he commenced a hunger-strike which continued for two and a half days until he was (incredibly, under the circumstances) granted them back. Daily he would spend many hours in fervent prayer in the Chabad tradition, his heartfelt melodies echoing through the dark corridors of the fearful Spalerna jail. He used cigarette papers to record his constant flow of original Torah-thought, Chassidic discourses, and his diary (which he had written almost daily since the age of eleven).
Soon even his guards and captors begrudgingly began to grant him respect and certain privileges denied other prisoners. They came to realize they were dealing with a man of resolute determination, who could not be swayed by the tortures or punishments normally effective in changing the minds of lesser mortals. They had also not realized what an uproar the imprisonment would provoke both in the U.S.S.R. and abroad. In addition to the public fasts and Tehillim of Jews throughout Russia and the Jewish world, an intensive campaign was immediately mounted to lobby influential personalities within the Soviet Union to intercede for the Rebbe. Simultaneously, protests poured in from well-known personalities and national leaders abroad, including the Presidents of France and the United States, and the German Chancellor.
On the sixteenth day of his imprisonment, guards entered his cell and ordered him to rise - they had something to tell him. Undeterred from his original decision not to acknowledge their importance, he refused to stand. They beat him and left. New guards came and the process repeated itself, and so again a third time. Realizing that they could not break him, they finally requested that he follow them to the prison office where he was told his sentence had been reduced.
Six Hours Until Departure For Kastroma
He noticed his file on the table. On the first line was written "Sentenced to death." It had been crossed out. Next to the second line - "Ten years hard labor in Solovki" (Arctic Siberia) - was written: "Nyet." Beneath that was written: "Three years Kastroma" - exile in a town in the Urals far away from areas of Jewish population. He was told he had six hours to return home and prepare himself for his journey by train to Kastroma.
It was Thursday and the Rebbe asked when the train would arrive. On learning it would arrive on Shabbos, he declared that under no circumstances would he travel. Since they would not let him go home for more than six hours, he opted to stay in the cruel jail two and a half more days until Sunday!
When he came to the railroad station on Sunday evening, 3 Tammuz, he was greeted by a huge crowd of brave chassidim who had come to see him off. The Rebbe publicly took his leave with immortal words that, considering his frightening experiences of the previous eighteen days and the heavy guard accompanying him, bespeak incredible courage:
...Let all the nations of the earth know that only our bodies have been sent into exile and subjected to alien rule - not our souls! We must openly proclaim that in whatever concerns our religion, Torah, mitzvos and Jewish customs, we Jews can accept the dictates of no one and for this matter no coercion will succeed.
We must declare with the most intense Jewish tenacity, with that Jewish courage time-honored for millennia: 'Do not touch My anointed and do not harm My prophets.'
... We lack even the required degree of determination to proclaim openly before the entire world and demonstrate the disgraceful deeds of a few hundred wild Jewish boys against Jews and Yiddishkeit. Everyone knows that (Soviet) law permits us to study Torah and observe mitzvos, but their libels and false accusations land us in jails and labor-camps.
And this is our plea to G-d ... May He grant us the necessary strength of character to remain unaffected by physical suffering and accept it instead with joy. Every punishment received for supporting a cheder for Torah study and for performing mitzvos should give us more power in the holy work of strengthening Yiddishkeit.
We must bear in mind that imprisonment and hard labor are transient, while Torah, mitzvos and the Jewish people are eternal.
Keep well, everyone, and stay strong in body and spirit. I hope to G-d that my temporary punishment will, with His help, inject fresh vitality into the constant and never-ending strengthening of Yiddishkeit ... and to all Jews may there be light ...
These stunning words were obviously anathema to his Tcheka guards and could easily have aroused their ire - with direst consequences. Fortunately, there was no adverse reaction. The Rebbe arrived in Kastroma after a long journey. But continued intercession at the highest levels of the Soviet Government secured his total release within a few days. On 12 Tammuz (his forty-seventh birthday), he was informed that he was free to leave.
Passage to Riga
But the danger was far from being over. The Yevsektzia and the Leningrad Tcheka were still smarting under the insult of having their prize enemy slip through their fingers. In addition to their open threats that they still square the score with him, which meant an ever-present, personal danger, the Rebbe's capability of personally supervising his network of activities was now so severely curtailed that it seemed pointless to stay in Russia. In any case, now that the activities were in full swing under the management of his trusted lieutenants, it seemed that he could accomplish far more by helping his oppressed brethren in Russia from outside the country.
A devoted Chassid of the Rebbe, Rabbi Mordechai Dubin, was head of the Agudath Israel in Latvia (then an independent country) and its chief delegate in the Sejm (parliament). As one who wielded considerable influence in Latvian political circles, he traveled to Moscow where he spoke to key officials, threatening to oppose an important economic treaty with Latvia (eagerly sought by the Soviet Union to offset their increasing international isolation), unless they would allow the Rebbe to leave.
After Simchas Torah, 1927, the Rebbe left Russia for Riga, together with his family, six close followers, and his massive and valuable library.
International Relief Movement
But the Rebbe could not forget Russian Jewry. He immediately threw himself into the task of raising funds for the educational network his followers were still running, for repair and establishment of mikvaos, for supply of religious needs and flour for matzos. He sounded the alarm to Jewry in the West, both Orthodox Jewry and the assimilated establishment in Western Europe and the United States, all of whom knew very little of what was going on in the Soviet Union, appealing that they come to the aid of their Russian brethren in order to ensure their continued Jewishness.
His efforts were so successful that, for Pesach 1928, and again in 1929, trains with dozens of rail cars left Riga for Leningrad, loaded with flour for matzos and other Pesach needs. After 1929, suppression of Yiddishkeit became too intense for such open aid, and instead the Rebbe initiated a campaign to send funds and parcels of shemurah flour to individuals.
In the summer of 1929, the Rebbe set out on a journey that would take him almost a year. First he went to Eretz Yisrael for two weeks, primarily in order to pray at the Western Wall and at the other holy places. Tens of thousands of Jews flocked to see the legendary figure who had defied the mighty Soviet fist. From there, the Rebbe left for the United States where he spent ten months raising funds for Soviet Jewry. His visit left a profound impression upon American Jewry and was widely reported even in the non-Jewish press. Wherever he went (New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit and Springfield, Massachusetts, among others), masses of Jews, traditional and otherwise, streamed to glimpse at him and hear his Chassidic discourses. He was also received by President Hoover in the White House.
The visit also left a profound impression upon the Rebbe himself. Though certain facets of the American scene he found distinctly distasteful ("How much is he worth?" was one!), he did later tell how impressed he was with the simple sincerity of American Jewish youth. "They have more potential than any other youth I have seen," he said. He almost decided to make America his permanent home, but eventually chose to return to Europe.
The Move to Warsaw
Till 1933, the Rebbe conducted his activities, which were assuming worldwide proportions, from Riga, Latvia. Here, too, he exerted strong influence on the local Jewish life, especially through Reb Mordechai Dubin and other Chabad Chassidim who were nationally prominent. He continued the now-renowned Chabad work with college students, which had begun in Soviet Russia, forecasting then that the wave of teshuvah of the future would come from the universities. Meanwhile, branches of the Tomchei Temimim Yeshivah were founded in Riga and elsewhere in Latvia, in addition to the Central Yeshivah in Warsaw (founded 1921) with its many branches in other Polish and Lithuanian cities. These yeshivos were very popular among all segments of the Jewish population, even among the Polish Chassidim who were used to somewhat different traditions of their own Chassidic dynasties, and even among those of non-Chassidic background - Lithuanian roshei yeshivos would send their sons and grandsons to Chabad yeshivos ketanos which were renowned for their high educational standards.
The Rebbe moved to Warsaw in 1933, and to its suburb Otvotsk in 1936. It was easier to conduct his activities from Poland than from Latvia, which was a small land with a relatively small Jewish community. The Chabad community in Poland, tiny before World War I, grew at a rapid pace as hundreds of students of the Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim graduated annually.
The American Period
All this came to an end in 1939. The Rebbe endured the German invasion and bombardment of Warsaw, experiencing at first hand the cruelty, famine and sufferings that heralded the terrible Holocaust. When his chassidim in New York managed, in February 1940, to have him repatriated to Riga as a Latvian citizen, he agreed to leave only because there was nothing more he could do to help his followers. He had helped many of his yeshivah-students to escape to Vilna, from where they were later able to pass through Russia to Shanghai, China.
The last boat out of Riga took the Rebbe to New York, where he arrived on 9 Adar II 1940. Physically broken from his ordeals in jail and ensuing complications (already in 1932 doctors were at a loss to explain how he still stayed alive), forced for the second time to leave his flock of followers and take the wanderer's staff in hand, the Rebbe remained undaunted. To the vast crowd of Jews who greeted him at the quayside, he immediately announced that Divine Providence had brought him to North America to create a fortress of Torah here.
Many warned him that the spiritual wilderness of America was not ripe for such a revolution. But if the mighty Soviet fist had not intimidated him, the cold ice of American assimilation had no more power to shake his resolve.
From his wheelchair, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak set in motion his promised spiritual revolution. First he founded the new central Yeshivah Tomchei Temimim (where the students for the first time in America were bearded). He then established a network of Yeshivah day-schools in a dozen north eastern cities - the first outside New York (except Baltimore), which was the forerunner and model for today's proud American Jewish day-school system. He established some of America's first Jewish girls schools, and another Yeshivah Gedolah in Montreal, Canada.
The Rebbe was the first to take advantage of a Supreme Court decision releasing public-school students one hour weekly for religious instruction. His yeshivah students and others would teach thousands of these children, for most of whom this was their only acquaintance with Yiddishkeit. He also battled successfully against proposed legislation that would have forced Jewish schools to teach secular subjects first before Torah studies. The Rebbe insisted that Jewish children study Torah first, in order to instill in them the primary importance of Torah.
Breaking the American Ice
He established a network of Mesibas Shabbos groups for boys and for girls, with meetings on Shabbos afternoons and occasional rallies, as on Lag B'Omer. And he opened a publishing house to print profound works of Halachah and Chassidus and also original new magazines and literature for youth and adults, in English and other languages. The popular style of the latter, while based on authentic Torah-sources (with none of the apologetic approach so prevalent then), blazed the trail for the tremendous flowering of English-language Torah literature we witness today. Millions of volumes were published within the next ten years.
Graduates of his yeshivah assumed positions as rabbis of communities, as principals and teachers in Jewish schools, and other key positions in Jewish life in New York and many other cities. Within three years, the Rebbe was able to announce to his Chassidim that "the American ice has finally been broken..." He began a campaign for as many Jews as possible to learn Mishnayos by heart in order to repeat words of Torah (Mishnah, Chumash, Tehillim, etc.) wherever they would go, thereby dispelling "the stale atmosphere, the mistaken notion that 'America is different.'"
By the time the war-torn European refugees arrived here after the war, they were amazed to find a viable traditional Jewish life in America, the land where, it had once been said, "even the stones are treif." Now even the most strictly Orthodox Jews could feel at home here and bring up their children in total accordance with Torah tradition.
When the Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, passed away on 10 Shvat, 1950, he was mourned not only by his Chassidim. The great Ohev, who loved and sacrificed himself for every Jew, had fulfilled his promise to an extent none had dared dream. After fighting for Yiddishkeit in such utterly differing climes, from atheistic U.S.S.R. to intensely Jewish Poland, he had now succeeded in embarking on the conversion of the barren spiritual wilderness of North America into a mighty fortress of Torah. Our debt to him is inestimable.