Mykolaiv is birthplace of one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed Jewish figures

He was born in Mykolaiv a few blocks away from the shipyard and dreamed of becoming a well-known shipbuilder, but, instead, he overturned the entire Jewish world.

The would-be 7th Lubavitcher Rebbe was born on 11 Nissan 5662 (April 18, 1902). His father Levi Yitzchok Schneerson was one of Russia’s best known rabbis at the time. A scholar who had profound knowledge of the Talmud, the Jewish Law and the Hasidic thought, he became a relentless enemy of the new winds the Bolsheviks had brought along. His wife Chana, the daughter of a Mykolaiv Rabbi Meir Shlomo Yanovsky, fully shared her husband’s views.

The boy – the first child in the family – was named after his great-grandfather Menachem Mendel, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe also known as Tzemach Tzedek (“Righteous Scion”) in the Jewish circles. When Menachem Mendel was five, his parents had to take him out of the heder because of his unusual success in studies and hire tutors for private lessons. The heder teacher was convinced that “this child was born to be great.” The truth is that, to be an Orthodox Jew in a working-class city, where the imperial might of the armored navy was growing at a rapid pace, you had to be strong.

There is a detail in the many reminiscences of the Rebbe’s childhood: they say nothing about children’s games. The boy did not play games or angle in the rivers that surrounded Mykolaiv from three sides – he studied. Many are proud of having been acquainted with him, but nobody will venture to call him their friend. He must have had no friends because he was “too smart” for kids and too young for adults. Father understood very soon that his son could not be just an ordinary “yeshiva bocher,” i.e. yeshiva student. When the boy was nine, he sent a short article to the children’s newspaper Ach that was published in Lubavitch, the religious center of Hasidism (now Smolensk oblast, Russia). The quiz kid’s work was published.

The teenager was really interested not only in the Torah, but also in secular sciences. Father allowed him to take up sciences at a time when he was free from studying the Torah, which took him 18 hours a day. Nevertheless, Menachem Mendel did an extramural course at the Mykolaiv Gymnasium in six months, received a graduation certificate and a gold medal. Then the troubled years of the German occupation and the Civil War came by. Mykolaiv’s Jews would still gather in the numerous synagogues.

EUROPE

In 1923 the young man set off to Rostov for what was perhaps the most important meeting in his lifetime. He went there to meet Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In 1927 he and the Rebbe’s family left Soviet Russia for good, and in 1929 he married the Rebbe’s daughter Chaya Mushka in Warsaw. Then the newlyweds moved from Warsaw to Berlin. The next period in the Rebbe’s life seems to be the least covered by biographers. First, he studied at Berlin University until 1933. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, the student Schneerson had to drop out of the University of Heidelberg, where he studied mathematics and philosophy. His fellow student, later the famous Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, recalls: “He was an unusual student. He immediately drew my attention – a young bearded man who read a small book in Hebrew all the time during lectures. I soon came to know that this student was the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s son-in-law.”

In 1933 the couple left Germany for Paris, France. He continued his studies at the Sorbonne’s shipbuilding department, where he was awarded the diploma of an engineer. Then his life path takes a most mysterious turn. The person, who had perfectly mastered religious texts and the theory of shipbuilding, had to make a choice. Fate prodded him and hinted that it was time to do a deed. Word has it that Stalin, Churchill, and the US president personally bared about his destiny. World War Two broke out in Europe. In 1941, after a series of adventures and almost whodunit-style events, the Schneerson couple managed to flee from the occupied France to the US.

USA

Rabbi Menachem Mendel planned to work as professional shipbuilder in America. Moreover, back at the Sorbonne, he had met the American Jew Chaim Rickover, dubbed later as “Father of the US Nuclear Navy.” He worked at the New York naval base, taking part in the designing of submarines. Although the nuclear submarine fleet began to be created so long ago, the veil of secrecy has not yet been lifted. Rebbe Schneerson’s secretary once said that the Rebbe had been paid money for his shipbuilding innovations until the end of his life. It is still unclear what exactly he invented – maybe, it is about noise abatement, in which Soviet submarines were far inferior to the US ones. A human life is not limitless, so the famous father-in-law, who had no son, insisted that his son-in-law should chair the two largest Lubavitch organizations: the Malach, the headquarters of the Chabad educational institutions; and Kehot, the word’s largest Jewish publishing house. The death of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson in 1950, naturally, raised the question of his successor. The Hasidim were to make a choice between the Rebbe’s two sons-in-law. Rabbi Shmarya Gurary, the elder daughter’s husband, was head of the Lubavitch yeshiva. He had spent all the previous years with is father-in-law and was ready to become his successor. Conversely, Rabbi Menachem Mendel was not exactly bursting to shoulder such an onerous burden. Besides, he represented a new generation: a Sorbonne alumnus, a scholar that has command of several European languages. Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok had left no clear instructions to this effect. Yet he had hinted more then once that he would prefer to see the younger son-in-law as his successor.

The would-be Rebbe categorically rejected the proposal to take his father-in-law’s place. He even said once in a fit of temper to the Hasidim that were pestering him that he would have to go to Russia to get rid of “absurd proposals.” But there was one thing he could not deny the Jews – advice and support. In any case, on the first anniversary of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok’s departure from this life, his younger son-in-law in fact became a new Rebbe. That was the dawn of the era of an unusual Rebbe-cum-shipbuilder born in Mykolaiv.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR EVERY JEW

In the 43 years of his leadership, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson managed to attract more people to Judaism than all this-generation religious leaders combined have done. He applied totally innovational methods which had been previously unheard of in Jewish organizations. The Rebbe seemed to be using all the potential of propaganda and promotion techniques, such as, above all, the press and public opinion, in order to achieve what he achieved. The seemingly defunct Hasidic movement turned into a powerful force, with millions of people feeling its influence. The Rebbe built an unprecedented network of Chabad religious sect branches all over the world. Thousands of his followers went to all nooks and crannies of the globe, and, to quote one of the most prominent Israeli rabbis, “Wherever you come to, you will see two things: Coca Cola and Chabad. And even where there is no Coca Coal there is Chabad.”

If we try to describe in a few words the main message that the Rebbe left for world, it will perhaps be responsibility of the entire Jewish nation for each and every Jew – no matter who he or she is and in what spiritual condition they are. There is not a single one who can be described as “zero,” “farfalen,” or “lost.” It is to this end that the Rebbe built the Chabad empire and used to send his emissaries even to the places where there were just a few Jews.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe Schneerson died in New York after Ukraine had gained independence, which he heartily welcomed. He left the largest-ever library of Hasidism, which also includes books on shipbuilding. The Mykolaiv synagogue has also revived in the era of independence – rabbis came and the Jewish community became more active. The Jews have put up a small monument in the neighborhood where the house of rabbis once stood. The only thing that has died or, to more exact, ground to a halt, is shipbuilding.