Parshas Vayishlach

Af­ter four years in the DP camp, R. Zal­man and his fam­ily re­ceived visas for en­try to the United States. On Wednes­day, 4 Elul 5711 (1951), they ar­rived in New York and set­tled in Crown Heights near the Rebbe, where R. Zal­man lived un­til his last day. Hav­ing been through so much suf­fer­ing, the death of his two sons, and just nar­rowly es­cap­ing the N.K. V .D., R. Zal­man de­cided to ded­i­cate the rest of his life to serv­ing Hashem in Torah, dav­en­ing and acts of kind­ness.

The day af­ter he ar­rived in New York, R. Zal­man went in to the Rebbe for yechidus. When he en­tered the room, the Rebbe rose from his place and said, “So, if one is per­sis­tent enough, one suc­ceeds!” It was more than a stan­dard yechidus be­tween Rebbe and chos­sid; it was a sort of re­union from days gone by in Leningrad with the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Rebbe spent a con­sid­er­able amount of time with R. Zal­man rem­i­nisc­ing about those spe­cial times.

In his di­ary en­try about this mon­u­men­tal event Reb Zal­man writes:

“On the fifth of Elul I went into yechidus and al­most im­me­di­ately the Rebbe asked me, ‘Do you re­mem­ber the far­bren­gen on the stair­case?’ Clearly re­fer­ring to an event that had taken place with both of us present. ”

At one point the Rebbe ex­claimed, “Now [here in Amer­ica] we can talk openly and freely, ” re­fer­ring to the anx­i­ety of Com­mu­nism that re­stricted even their speech.

The Rebbe, clearly ex­hil­a­rated to see him on safe shores told him, “ Nu, Reb Zal­man, from Leningrad to New York and we are see­ing each other, Boruch Hashem!”

R. Zal­man replied some­what somberly, “Yes, but the ‘ticket’ was very ex­pen­sive. ”