Dear [first_name],

Family, friends and admirers around the world are wishing Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morosow, “Reb Mendel,” a heartfelt Mazel Tov on the occasion of his 100th birthday today, Taanis Esther.

Born in 1916 in the village of Lubavitch to his esteemed father Reb “Chonye” Morozov – confidante and secretary to both the Rebbe Rashab and Rebbe Rayatz – Reb Mendel lived in Russia through the murderous Stalin years and the tumultuous years of WWII. Always sharp, even as a young boy he an played an active role in saving his father from the NKVD who had come to arrest him for his efforts on behalf of the Rebbe. Later as a teen and then as a young man, he saw his father arrested twice, the second time in 1938 – tirtzach – never to return.

Reb Mendel and his family lived in the same house as the Rebbe Rayatz in Rostov where as a young child he experienced personal encounters of great kiruv from the Rebbe. Later he lived with his family on the same floor of the Rebbe Rayatz in Leningrad.

After the war he escaped Russia with forged Polish passports on the famous “train transports,” and spent time in both France and Ireland before coming to America in the early 1950’s so he could be with our Rebbe.

When Reb Michoel Teitelbaum founded Oholei Torah, Reb Mendel joined its central Hanhalah, and spent the next six decades helping the Yeshiva, educating and being Mashpia to the bochrim in Yeshiva. Thousands of Chassidim around the world retain fond memories of Reb Mendel farbrenging in his inimitable style throughout the wee hours of the morning – his stories, his niggunim, his witty vertlach.

His father had been asked by the Rebbe Rayatz to record the Alter Rebbe’s ten Niggunim in musical notes, rescuing these tunes for posterity, and Reb Mendel never tires of teaching and singing the handful in the set that are not commonly sung. Reb Mendel sings another Niggun, a stately march, so often that people already call the Niggun by his name (Avraham Fried recorded it on his latest Chabad Niggunim Album).

Some of his witty vertlach include:

• Chassidus teaches that the Hebrew word for world - “Olam” - means concealment, because it conceals G-d. So why is the next world called “Olam Habo”? Surely it is a world that finally reveals G-d? Because the next world conceals all the trivialities and petty conceits of this world.
• Only those who learn Chassidus know the great worth of this physical world, where performing a simple mitzvah can connect you to the very essence of G-d. If so, Chassidim are the only ones who can enjoy Olam haZeh (this world) in its truest sense!

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With best wishes for a Good Shabbos on behalf of the Rebbetzin and all of us at South Head,

Rabbi Benzion Milecki OAM

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And here is the remarkable thing — had he continued to work, he would have probably gone out of business anyway. My father was an old-fashioned optometrist who was concerned with eye diseases; he couldn’t have cared less about frame styles. But the optometry business took a huge turn towards fashion. Shortly, he would have been behind the times, losing customers left and right, and unable to sell the shop for much. But, because he put it up for sale when he did, he got a very nice price for it.

I believe this was a direct result of the Rebbe’s blessing. Read more