By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives
A group of young women got together in the mid-1950’s to create a Lubavitch newsletter. It would contain Torah ideas, a talk of the Rebbe, a story, the latest mazel tovs and the couples that went on shlichus.
Before designing, mimeographing and distributing them, a copy would be delivered to the Rebbe for review.
Once the editor of the newsletter, Susha Alperowitz, was in a private audience with the Rebbe, when he began to discuss the newsletter. The Rebbe had just given a talk about Miriam’s song, in contrast to the men’s singing.
When it came to the Exodus from Egypt, the Rebbe said in the 1956 talk, the women were much happier. The reason, he explained, was because there was a grave decree against the children, who they had given birth to and it was the mission to raise them. Thus, when the women in our times are successful in overcoming the spiritual Pharaoh – being enslaved to materialism, to the winds of assimilation and secularism, they are much happier.
“I would like you to prepare the talk and publish it in the next newsletter,” the Rebbe said.
There was a women’s convention around that time. Rabbi Yosef Wineberg, the unforgettable fundraiser for the United Lubavitcher Yeshivoth, delivered a rendition of the talk to the women there.
”Standing in front of the Rebbe, I thought to myself that I could never prepare the talk on my own. It would be a good idea, since Rabbi Wineberg had already prepared the talk to deliver as a speech, that he should prepare it for print.
“I will ask Rabbi Wineberg to write it up,” I told the Rebbe.
The Rebbe responded, driving home for Susha a lifelong message to never overlook one’s own capabilities: “Why do you have to ask Rabbi Wineberg, when you could do it on your own?”
Find Hasidic Archives latest books on HasidicArchives.com My Gulag Life: Stories of a Soviet Prisoner and Dear Rebbe: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson corresponds with a singer, a writer, a sculptor & a Holocaust survivor.
This was not just a group of women: it was our neshei Chabad women’s group
Where did this gathering take place?