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The Satmar Rebbe Doest

Beo Excusve to SatmarMarking the day the SatMar rebbe waS liberated

Rabbi Frankel at the lectern, Satmar

Rebbe Rav Zalman Leib Teitelbaumright (gold bekeshe)

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LAST WEEK we saw the Satmar Rebbe helping everyone regardless o afliation.THIS WEEK we see why the Rebbes day o liberation should be celebrated by all o Klal Yisrael.


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S

tanding this past Motzei Shab-bos as the guest speaker of theevening in ront o thousandsupon thousands o Satmarchassidim in the Williamsburg

armory, where they had come to celebratethe Rebbes liberation rom the Nazis, myprimary thought was that this celebrationdoesnt belong solely to Satmar, but to alloKlalYisrael. The Satmar Rebbe was thesavior o the entire Torah, and one o theleadinggedolim o the Jewish nation. TheSatmar kehilla does indeed lay claim to theRebbe, yet he is not exclusively theirs. AlloKlal Yisrael should rejoice on Kuf-AlefKislev.

Let me try to explain the Rebbes ar-reaching inuence by way o illustration.

In 1950, one o the prominent yeshivasin America held a undraising dinner. Yetthe roshei yeshiva, all respectable talmi-dei chachamim, had to leave beore it wasover. Do you know why? Because ater themeal there was mixed dancing. Today, thissounds very ar-etched. Mixed dancing atthe undraising dinner o a noted yeshiva?But, unfortunately, back then this was com-monplace.

In the 40s and 50s the rebbetzins omany roshei yeshiva did not cover their hairwith a sheitel. Not, chas veshalom, becausethey werentrum, but this is how it was in

America. Then the Rebbe arrived, and hemade a revolution. Even people who nevermet him were inuenced by him and hisstringencies.

The same held true with respect toZionism. It used to be that someone whosaid he was an anti-Zionist was ostra-cized. Today, the Rebbes philosophy is sorenowned, accepted, and understood.

How did the Rebbe do it? This is a ques-tion that nagged at me as I delivered myspeech. He sat within the our cubits ohis room and hardly ever left it. Occasion-ally, he asked me or someone else to drivehim somewhere. Yet he took America andturned it upside down. Yiddishkeit sud-denly started blossoming in this heretoforebarren country. He revolutionized Yiddish-keit not only in America, but around theglobe.

How did the Rebbe do it? I honestlydont know. But if I had to venture a guess,

I would say that he succeeded becausehe did not have a single ulterior motive.Everything he undertook was solely orthe sake o Heaven. This level o sincerity

reverberated throughout the world. Everyperson and place was inuenced by hissingular spirituality and holiness.

I spoke or 32 minutes, yet hardlytouched upon the Rebbes greatness. Inot or two very tall, husky ellows whostood behind the podium, and sent me amessage that due to the evenings lineup ofdistinguished speakers my time was up, I

I spoke for 32 minutes, yet hardly touched upon the

Rebbes greatness. If not for two very tall, husky fellows

who stood behind the podium, and sent me a message

that due to the evenings lineup of distinguished

speakers my time was up, I could have gone on and on.

The crowd in the Williamsburg Armory

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By RABBi HERTz FRAnkEl


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could have gone on and on.One of the things I relayed half-jokingly,

which I believe the audience appreciated,was that when I frst met the Rebbe hetested me for an hour and a half. Only thendid he oer me a job. He didnt test me,though, in the our volumes o the Shul-chan Aruch, but in the fthhe primarilywanted to know whether I was a mensch. Ihope, I believe, he found me acceptable.

My personal estimate o the crowd wasthat there were between six and seventhousand people present in the Wil-liamsburg armory, under the leadership

o the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Zalman LeibTeitelbaum. I was told that there wasapproximately the same number of peoplegathered in the armory in Crown Heights,under the leadership of the Satmar Rebbe,Rav Aharon Teitelbaum.

My fnal exhilarating thought that eve-ning was Am Yisrael Chai. These may beZionistic words, but I could fnd no betterwords to express my feelings. Klal Yisraelthe chassidic and Orthodox communityhas continuity. There are our generationso Satmar chassidim, who received theirchinuch in the Satmar school system in

America, who are shomrei Torah and mitzvoson account o the Rebbe and continue hislegacy. This, along with all oKlal Yisrael,will grow and perpetuate itsel, iyh, untilthe coming of Moshiach.

t Pcp s ss r hz F-

, o s es pcp of to V

scoo fo os bs roc scoo fo s,

poso s sc 1959. w o u-

scoos, s c s Sc

of S fo Sm r, rv yo t-

um, ztl.

The crowd in the Crown Heights Armory

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Satmar Rebbe Rav Aharon Teitelbaumaddressing the assembled

Satmar Rebbe Rav Aharon Teitelbaum

addressing the assembled

pages 84-87-ami-issue50.rabbifrankel

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