Today is the yartzeit of my grandfather, Zeide Rabbi Yechiel Michel Piekarsky. He passed away almost twenty years ago. I lived in his home for ten years while studying in Yeshiva in Crown Heights, so I have many memories. On this occasion of his yartzeit, I’d like to share a few short stories about him.
(1) The first story is about how he’d go to sleep. It speaks a lot about his love of Torah study. He would sit in the dining room, on the big table that had dog carvings and claws for table-feet, in front of an open Talmud. He would study in a sing-song voice, a specific tune fragment that he would sing between words of Talmud. He would sing that distinctive tune and read a few words, but as the night wore on, he would start falling asleep – and it would get quiet. My grandmother would be lying in bed, reading a book, and would hear the lull in his sing-song. She would call out from the bedroom to the dining room: “Michel, kum shoyn shlofen (come to sleep already)!” That would wake him, he’d stir a bit, and get back to his sing-song and learning. Before long, he would nod off again. And there would be quiet. Again, my grandmother would call out, again he would stir awake, and the process would repeat itself a few times before he went off to sleep. He was reluctant to leave his studies, he loved learning.
(2) The second story is about his early rising. I knew him in his later years when he had a whole morning routine. You could almost tell time by which step he was in that routine, he was that punctual and predictable. But long before I was born, he lived on the other side of Eastern Parkway, and would catch a very early morning train from the Kingston Ave stop (just in front of “770” the home address of Chabad) and head to work as a Shochet (a ritual slaughterer). One early morning, about 5am, as he was headed to the subway, the Rebbe was leaving 770. Before 1977, several days a week, the Rebbe would have private, personal appointments called “yechidus” to meet individuals or families on a private basis. They often went late, sometimes until 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning. On one such late night/early morning, the Rebbe met my grandfather on his way home, outside that subway station. The Rebbe told my grandfather, “It seems that your day begins when my day ends.” (My personal commentary: Symbolically, the Rebbe puts in a long spiritual day, which gives us the energy and spiritual resources to begin our day’s work, based on that inspiration).
(3) And the third story is about his coming to America. My grandfather was from a small Russian town Paritchi, hence old-timers called him “Michel Paritcher”. In his youth he studied in several “underground” Chabad Yeshivot. Several – because once the Russian authorities got wind of one, they had to escape in time to start their studies in a new town. He experienced Russian prison first hand, and was not enamored with it to say the least. During the War he and my grandmother fled to Siberia, and once the War was over he could not wait to get out of Russia. An opportunity presented itself: Russia allowed Polish WWII refugees to return home, but not all those refugees survived the War, so their passports went up for sale. There was some question among the Chassidim if they should or should not take advantage of this opportunity, but my grandfather wasted no time. He paid the money on the black market, got the passports and headed for the border crossing as soon as possible. Thankfully he made it out of Russia; himself, two young sons, and his pregnant wife (my grandmother) who gave birth in Brooklyn after their journey across Europe. When they reached France or England (not sure, but I think it was England) he had little patience for a ship which was the normal mode of trans-Atlantic travel at the time, and took a flight to New York instead. Remember, airplanes at that time were not the airplanes of today. But he could not get away from Europe fast enough. Soon after their arrival in New York, they went to see the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880-1950). When the Previous Rebbe saw my grandfather he put his hand on his heart and said, “Now my heart is whole.” Because my grandfather (because of his great haste) was the first (or at least among the very first) Russian Chabad Chassid to arrive in America after WWII.
See this other post with more memories of Zeide Michel Piekarski