Zalmon Jaffe

At 6:00 p.m. on Friday, the first day of Shavuos, following mincha, the annual march to Boro Park took place. Thousands of bochurim and men participated in this five-mile (in each direction) walk. Police always escort the procession with cars and motorcyc...

Shavuos was on Friday and Shabbos (May 16-17). We spent a very joyous yom tov in the Rebbe’s company. I did my best to make the Rebbe happy by singing a niggun when the Rebbe entered the shul. Sometimes I also danced a rikud (dance) when the Rebbe was lea...

After handing the Tanyas to the Rebbe, while we were still standing on the Rebbe’s platform, the Rebbe delivered a six-minute sicha. The following are some of the points: The Torah is comprised of both a “revealed” and a “concealed” (i.e. mystical) aspect...

On Wednesday afternoon, Sivan 4 (May 14), the Rebbe went to the ohel again, returning for a late mincha. There had been much discussion and surmising on when and how the Tanya would be formally presented to the Rebbe. In general, in such circumstances, we...

In light of Rabbi Chodakov’s letter regarding the apartment for the Lews, we were not surprised to find that everything was in order. Situated on Eastern Parkway, almost exactly opposite 770, the apartment was in a truly ideal spot. It was on the sixth fl...

We arrived at 770 at about 2:30 on Monday afternoon, Sivan 2 (May 12). (Shavuos was Thursday evening.) The Rebbe was at the ohel when we arrived. We immediately sent a memorandum to the Rebbe stating that we had brought with us a consignment of the first ...

At the airport in London, we met up with Hershel and we had our first glimpse of the Tanya. It was a beauty! A wonderful piece of workmanship, surpassing anything that we had ever conceived or imagined. It was a classic, a masterpiece! Everything that had...

Prior to traveling to the Rebbe for Shavuos 5733 (1973), I was thrilled when Bloch personally delivered to me a thick bound copy of our new production. Upon examination, however, I discovered that it only contained one printed page (the usual sample page)...

I write to the Rebbe almost every two weeks reporting on the latest news with Lubavitch in Manchester and relating the events and progress in various spheres of our activities. In one of those regular letters to the Rebbe, I proposed altering “gentiles” t...

In 1970, Rabbi Nachman Sudak, head of the Lubavitch Foundation in London, contacted me. The Rebbe had indicated to him that the Tanya (the seminal work of Chabad philosophy) should be printed in five countries in which it had hitherto never been printed. ...