Living Torah Archives

Israel Singer is a Jewish activist, academic and former secretary general of the World Jewish Congress. In the mid-1970s, he taught political science in New York and served on the staff of President Gerald Ford. When he visited the Rebbe in preparation for a trip to the Soviet Union, the Rebbe asked him for a personal favor. The feeling of privilege from carrying out the Rebbe’s wishes at that time, has remained the most special experience of his life to this day. (1974)

Reb Mottel Lifshitz, a key figure in the Soviet Jewish underground, served as Moscow’s only ritual slaughterer for almost three decades, and performed countless clandestine circumcisions.

Mrs. Chana Popack and her husband served as Chabad emissaries in Philadelphia for three decades. She was born in Soviet Russia during Stalinist times, and her father was at a loss about where to send her to school. He couldn’t communicate directly with the Rebbe, for fear of being intercepted by the Soviet authorities. But through various maneuvers, he managed to get advice from the Rebbe, and somehow, the Rebbe’s unlikely idea worked. (1930s)

We need to find a solution for printing the Tanya in Russia. If you go on your own, the communists will probably interfere and get in your way. It would be better if in each location, you found someone connected to the authorities, to the officials there.

Rabbi Yitzchak Kogan serves as rabbi of the Bronnaya Synagogue in Moscow. He is a former Refusenik and leading figure in the Soviet Jewish underground. Under the intrusively watchful eye of the Soviet authorities, it was most difficult to obtain Kosher meat. Without any alternative, he decided to become a qualified Kosher slaughterer himself. But it was the Rebbe’s encouragement and blessings from afar that kept his spirit alive. (1980s)

Professor David Weiss was issued a special passport by the Soviet Union that allowed him to reach Jews that others couldn’t. At one point, the Rebbe asked him to come for a meeting to discuss the state of Jewish affairs in the USSR. in this interview, he recalls some of the points that were addressed at that meeting. (1965)

Rabbi Yitzchak Kogan serves as the director of the Bronnaya Synagogue in Moscow. He is a former refusenik and leading figure in the Soviet Jewish underground. Although he later had numerous encounters with the Rebbe, as a young child, all he knew was what he heard from his mother. (1981)

Upon seeing the Rebbe for the first time, a newly-emigrated refusenik, a Jew who was previously trapped behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union, recites the shehechiyanu blessing.

Rabbi Yosef Mendelevitch is a Rabbi and teacher living in Jerusalem, Israel. He is famous for his struggles in Soviet Russia where he was imprisoned for almost a decade for his public attempts to immigrate to Israel from the Soviet Union. It is the Rebbe’s care and direction, however, which led him down the path on which he finds himself until this day.(year 1980)

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, the Rebbe’s father, dedicated himself to the impossible task of providing true leadership to Soviet Jewry stuck in the USSR. He may have ended up paying for his efforts with his life, but his legacy has far outlived that of his oppressors.

In 1927, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, was arrested for his efforts to save Judaism from being stamped out in the face of Soviet repression.

Abraham broke his natural tendencies to follow G-d. We can (and must!) do the same.

Rabbi Eliezer Nisilevitch recalls the dangers his family faced in the Soviet Union as members of the Jewish underground, and the strength and direction they received from the Rebbe even after they had succeeded in emigrating to Israel. (1971)

As Jews, we’re painfully familiar with the term “self sacrifice”. Throughout the course of our history, so many Jews have chosen to give up their lives for Judaism to endure. But serving G-d with self sacrifice need not be limited to such dire circumstances. Each of us are face regularly with tests of character and attitude, and it’s up to us to rise to the challenge and overcome it. So next time you need to choose between helping yourself or those around you, have some self sacrifice and serve the greater good.

In Sefer Hasichos 5702, the Previous Rebbe relates some of the struggle that Chassidim endured in the Soviet Union. Warned against practicing Judaism under threat of danger to their lives, the Previous Rebbe gathered his closest Chassidim and made a pact. They swore not to be deterred from their mission, in spreading and promoting a life of Torah.

Those trapped in the Soviet Union face a tremendous test. They have been in a predicament in which there was never a calm moment in matters of Judaism, yet they have never been deterred from their commitment to Judaism.

After promising to maintain secrecy and informing the Rebbe of his plans, he was given some contacts by the Rebbe. (1960's)

Addressing Jews who had recently arrived from the Soviet Union at a Lag B’omer parade, the Rebbe explains that they demonstrate, for all to see, the steadfast commitment to Torah and Judaism that the Jewish people have, despite adversity.

When Gershon Ber Schiff finally emigrated from Russia, he was excited to be spending Passover with the Rebbe. When the Rebbe called an unscheduled farbrengen on the first day of the festival, he realized just how much it meant to the Rebbe, too. (1971)

Rabbi Gershon Ber Schiff was active in the Jewish underground in the Soviet Union. When he heard that his relative was visiting Moscow from beyond the Iron Curtain, he was torn about whether to put himself and his activities in danger in order to meet - until he heard a message from the Rebbe. (1969)

The passing of the Rebbe’s father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Schneerson, is marked on the 20th of Av. He was imprisoned and exiled to Kazakhstan for his stance against Soviet efforts to uproot Jewish learning and practice.

Elimelech Leiman relates that when the Rebbe heard about his father’s upcoming trip to the Soviet Union to visit family, he requested to see him. Handing him a bag of esrogim and a secret code, the Rebbe stated, “This mission will be good for them and good for you.”

While Professor Evsey Nemoytin served as dean of Kazakh State University, his parents ran an underground mikvah. In the 1970s, the Rebbe arranged their eventual exit from the Soviet Union. Professor Nemoytin recalls the Rebbe’s valuable advice, as well as his delight at learning that the Rebbe understood his field of research. (Includes footage filmed by Rabbi Berel Levy to be smuggled out to the Rebbe.)

He spoke about the imperative to provide Jewish children with an authentic Torah education, even under communist rule.

Rabbi Hillel Zaltzman was active in the Soviet Jewish underground. When faced with hard times and tough decisions, he recalls secretly consulting his “zeide” in America. The word may simply mean “grandfather” in Yiddish, but to Rabbi Zaltzman and his comrades, it was the code name for “Rebbe.” (1960s)

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin, Moscow’s chief rabbi, was sent by the Soviet government to the United States to assure the West that Soviet Jewry faces no discrimination and is free to practice its religion.

An excerpt from a recorded meeting between the Rebbe and Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin, the Chief Rabbi of Moscow, during his visit to the United States.

Shortly after Mrs. Ella Skoblo arrived in New York, she had an audience with the Rebbe. While she knew that her grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin, the Chief Rabbi of Moscow during the Soviet era, had met with the Rebbe during his visit in 1968, she was surprised to discover that he was also part of a covert operation orchestrated by the Rebbe.

The Rebbe’s father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Schneerson, whose passing is marked on the 20th of Av, was imprisoned and exiled to Kazakhstan for his stance against Soviet efforts to uproot Jewish learning and practice.

Reb Mendel Futerfas, imprisoned in a Soviet gulag and unable to communicate with the outside world, composed a unique letter in his mind and “sent” it off to the Previous Rebbe. Reb Mendel’s wife was shocked to receive a letter from the Previous Rebbe in reply to her husband’s “telegram.”

My father served as chief rabbi of Dnipropetrovsk, a major city in Ukraine, which supplied wheat to large parts of Russia. When the time came to prepare flour for matzah, people flocked from the surrounding areas seeking flour that was certified kosher for Passover.

Professor Herman Branover is a world-renowned physicist. Living as a refusnik in Leningrad in 1972, he found the phone number to 770 in the inside page of a Jewish prayer book...(circa 1972)

The events of the Previous Rebbe’s liberation on the 12th of Tammuz raise a fundamental question: How is it that one solitary individual was able to stand against a tyrannical world power?

After over fifty years of persecution, Soviet Jews have come out whole in their Judaism and with children following in their ways. Having served G-d with such sacrifice for over a halfcentury, one might argue that they have done their fair share — now it’s time to relax a bit…

The Stalinist regime that imprisoned my father-in-law, the Rebbe, in 1927, was then a superpower. Despite that, he defied his oppressors. He did not budge an inch in anything that jeopardized his principles. Even at the train station, about to be exiled, he declared publicly: “Only our bodies, not our souls, were sent into exile.” And indeed, his defiance led to his release.

At the time that the Soviet Union began to open its doors, Shoshana Cardin served as Chairman of NCSJ, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.

My father gave his life helping to preserve Judaism in communist Russia; thus his Yahrzeit has great significance for all Jews – especially when we see the fruits of his self-sacrifice continuing to bear fruit today, with countless Jews from the Soviet Union observing Torah and Mitzvos.

The following talk, as others in its genre, was meant as encouragement for the underground Russian Jewish movement. Some of these talks or their translation into Russian would be broadcast on Radio Free Europe, reaching the oppressed peoples of the Soviet Republics.

After the passing of his mother, Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, in 1964, the Rebbe began holding a farbrengen, chassidic gathering and public address, on the date of her yahrzeit. This gathering would be dedicated to her legacy, and to the mission of the Jewish woman.