Sefiras HaOmer

When the Rebbe’s brother, R. Yis­roel Aryeh Leib, passed away in Eng­land on 13 lyar, 5712 (1952), the Rebbe in­structed that the body be brought to Eretz Yis­roel and buried in Tz­fas. The Rebbe had spe­cific in­struc­tions re­gard­ing the burial, and he wanted R. Bentzion Shem Tov to su­per­vise the pro­ce­dure. At that time, R. Bentzion was in Dublin, vis­it­ing the shochtim, and was stay­ing at R. Yis­roel’s home. The Rebbe con­veyed sev­eral of the in­struc­tions through R. Yis­roel. This was R. Yis­roel’s first com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Rebbe.

The Rashag, the Rebbe’s son-in-law, came for Shab­bos from Kos­trama, and, af­ter Min­chah, near the bal­cony in the large zal, told a few of us, in the Rebbe’s name, many ques­tions the in­ter­roga­tors had asked, the Rebbe’s re­sponses and, in gen­eral, what he had un­der­gone.

When he en­tered the in­ter­ro­ga­tion room an in­ves­ti­ga­tor with a stubby nose and a stut­ter was seated there. The walls were thin, made of ply­wood. Se­nior of­fi­cials sat fur­ther back in the room.

When Lulav and Nach­man­son came in, the Rebbe told them, “His­tory will record this dis­grace: who was ap­pointed to in­ter­ro­gate the Lubav­itcher Rebbe. ” When they be­gan to ac­cuse him of es­pi­onage, he re­acted sharply, “Re­tract this at once. Do you want to make an­other Beilis Af­fair?”²⁶ And when they started talk­ing about dis­sem­i­nat­ing Torah, he said, “I am not a teacher; I salute learn­ing Torah. ”

Un­til they re­turned his tefillin he would not an­swer any ques­tions.

When the in­ter­roga­tor gave him a glass of wa­ter and he put on his hat to re­cite the bless­ing She­hakol, they said, “You think you’re so im­por­tant; you don’t think you can be shorter by a head?”

“The whole earth is filled with His glory,”²⁷ he an­swered.

26. Menachem Mendel Beilis was a Ukrainian Jew accused of ritual murder in the notorious 1913 blood-libel trial known as the “Beilis Affair. ” ↩
27. Yeshayahu 6:3. ↩