Creating a network of schools and services under the noses of the KGB.A memoir of challenge and survival
“Passport please,” the Soviet policeman demanded.
Rabbi Hillel Zaltzman, clutching a suitcase full of anti-Communist contraband — including siddurim, Tanyas, and religious pamphlets — handed over his passport, heart racing with fear.
The policeman scanned the document, noting suspiciously that Reb Hillel was from Samarkand, Uzbekistan — 4,000 kilometers from Lvov.
“Open your suitcase, comrade,” the policeman instructed.
Rabbi Zaltzman was panic-stricken and thought the game was up. But then he recalled an old chassidic tale. Back in the 1800s, went the story, a Lubavitcher chassid named Reb Moshe Meisels was ordered by his rebbe, Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi, to spy for the Russians against Napoleon. Caught and accused of espionage (according to the story, by Napoleon himself), Reb Moshe managed to feign complete innocence by concentrating on the chassidic idea that, “the mind rules the heart.”
Rabbi Zaltzman attempted the same strategy.
“I mustered my inner reserves… and with a relaxed smile I began to open the suitcase,” he says. At that point, the only thing between him and a steep jail sentence — or worse — were a few towels and articles of clothing sparsely covering the contraband material. “I felt the policeman eyeing me and I continued to smile. After I opened the latch, I started to raise the cover. He continued to watch me, and I continued to smile for all I was worth,” Reb Hillel describes.
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