770 Passes college inspection

Immediately upon his arrival on the shores of America, the Frierdige Rebbe publicized his intention to establish a Yeshiva here. Subsequently, a few days after his arrival, he contacted a Jew, who we’ll call Mr. B. Mr. B was a modern Orthodox lawyer, and the Frierdige Rebbe said to him that he wants him to arrange to have a college incorporated.

 “What college do you have to incorporate?”, asked Mr. B in surprise.

“I’m planning to establish a Yeshiva in the next few days, and I want you to incorporate it legally as a Jewish college”.

Mr. B pictured the Yeshiva that he imagined the Lubavitcher Rebbe would establish, and found the request unrealistic. But the Rebbe was undaunted. “Yeshiva University was incorporated, and my Yeshiva will be incorporated as well”, he said.

The lawyer was incredulous: “There is quite a difference between YU and the future Lubavitcher Yeshiva”, he protested. But the Rebbe was adamant: “I didn’t call you to get your opinion, I am asking you to carry out my request”. “”But, what will you do when they make an inspection?” asked the lawyer. “Even if I am successful in filing the papers, they are bound to inspect us, and then everything will be for naught in any case?

The Rebbe repeated his position: “You don’t have to advise me, just do what I’m asking you to do, and let me worry about the rest.

Mr. B obeyed the Frierdige Rebbe, and filed the papers. Sure enough, not long thereafter, he received a communication from the government informing him that there would be an inspection in thirty days. Distraught, he ran to the Rebbe, complaining: “Didn’t I warn you that this is not something that we can play around with, that they were bound to check us out? We can’t possibly survive an inspection! What will they say?!?”

But the Rebbe remained unconcerned. “Didn’t I tell you not to worry?”, he admonished, “just be sure, when the inspector comes, you should bring him to meet me”,

On the designated day, the representative of the government arrived. Mr. B, who was a tall man himself, found him looking up into the stern uncompromising face of a WASP, who was gazing down at him disdainfully, arrogantly, contemptuously. Mr. B, who had been pessimistic to begin with, felt his spirits plummeting.

“So”, asked the inspector pointedly, “where’s this college?”

The lawyer took him into the zal of 770, and showed him the “Lubavitcher Yeshiva college”. The inspector glanced at the group of disheveled-looking bochurim, sitting in front of worn-out seforim, and was noticeably unimpressed.

“Mmhmm”, was his only remark.

“Where’s the lab?” he then asked. “The lab”, said Mr. B, “the lab, why we’re in the process of constructing a beautiful lab”.

“Mmhmm”.

The inspector began walking towards his car. “Where . . where are you going?” asked Mr B. “You just arrived, you need to finish the inspection!”

“I’ve seen enough”, he replied, “there’s no need for me to remain here any longer”.

Mr. B realized that this was his last chance to at least carry out the personal request of the Rebbe. “Wait”, he called after him, “before you go, I would like you to meet the Rabbi”. But the inspector saw no purpose in that.

Mr. B began to explain to him about the Frierdige Rebbe, what a great leader he was, and how much he had suffered in Russia as a result of his mesirus nefesh, until he finally came to America.

“If what you’re saying is true, then that’s all the more reason for me not to meet him and cause him even more anguish, because there’s just no way in the world that I can tell him what he wants to hear!”

But Mr. B persisted, emphasizing how the Rebbe had specifically requested this meeting. Finally, the inspector relented. Mr. B took him, upstairs in 770, to the Rebbe’s apartment, and knocked on the door. Presently, the gabay opened the door, and, while obstructing the opening with his body so that they could not enter, asked them what they wanted.

Mr. B began explaining – in English – who they were, and that the Rebbe had requested the meeting. Just then, they noticed the Frierdige Rebbe. He was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. The Frierdige Rebbe began to bless the inspector with beautiful brochos, for long life etc., and concluded with an instruction to sign for the Yeshiva.

The lawyer translated the words of the Rebbe to the inspector. As soon as he had completed, the gabay (who continued preventing their entry, so that the 2 had remained standing outside the entire time) slammed the door shut. As the 2 started walking away, the inspector asked Mr. B where there was an office where they could sit down. They went to an office, and the inspector began removing forms from his briefcase, and completing them.

Mr. B watched in astonishment, not believing his eyes, not knowing if he was awake or dreaming. In short order, the inspector completed the necessary forms indicating that the Yeshiva had passed the inspection, handed them over to Mr. B, and began walking nonchalantly to his car.

Mr. B escorted him, but when they got to the car he could no longer contain his amazement, and asked the inspector: “Didn’t you express some reservations before (about us passing the inspection)?”

“Are you kidding?!” the inspector retorted.

Mr. B looked at him uncomprehending. “What do you mean ‘am I kidding’”?

“Are you kidding?” the inspector repeated, “the holy Rabbi told me to sign, and I won’t sign?!”

[One day, a Jew with a white beard came into the Yeshiva in Toronto, and sat down to learn gemoro. It was during the summer, when the Yeshiva wasn’t present, and Rabbi Chone Perman approached him. It turned out that he was a Rosh Yeshiva in a Mizrachi Yeshiva. In the course of their conversation, he revealed that his father had been the above Mr. B, who had served as the lawyer for Lubavitch for numerous years, and he shared the above story about the beginning of his relationship with the Frierdige Rebbe.

“My father repeated the story to me often”, the Rosh Yeshiva related to Rabbi Perman. “He always said: ‘If I would have heard the story from anyone else, I would have been convinced that it is fabricated, but what can I do, I witnessed it all personally!’”]