On 58 Years

By: Yochanan Gordon

The truth is that erev Rosh Chodesh Elul marks the 57th yahrzeit of my great-grandfather and namesake, Reb Yochanan ben Reb Yisrael Gordon of Dokshitz. Yet, in a sense, it is on Rosh Chodesh Elul itself that we enter the 58th year since his passing.

The number 58 corresponds to the Hebrew word chein, a word that carries special significance in my own life. It is embedded in both my name, Yochanan, and my wife’s name, Chana. As we enter the fifty-eighth year since my great-grandfather’s passing, I found myself reflecting not only on his life, but on what it means to carry another person’s name.

My great-grandfather possessed an extraordinary measure of chein. Perhaps it is no coincidence that he embodied the very quality encoded within his name. He possessed a Torahdik sense of humor unlike anyone I’ve ever heard described. Even in his sharpness, he brought smiles to people’s faces and joy to their souls.

On more than one occasion, he even made the Rebbe smile.

The story goes that my great-uncle, Reb Sholom Ber Gordon, was visiting home from his shlichus in Newark, New Jersey, when my great-grandfather, who served as the gabbai in 770 Eastern Parkway, honored him with hagbah. He accidentally lifted the Torah and sat down with it rather than following the Chabad custom of first placing it back on the bimah so it could be rolled and wrapped by the gollel before sitting.

Without batting an eyelash, my elter-zaide quoted the verse from Tehillim, “V’yitarvu b’goyim v’yilmidu ma’aseihem.” —“They assimilated among the nations and adopted their ways”—loudly enough for the Rebbe, who was standing nearby, to hear.

The Rebbe chuckled.

On another occasion, my great-grandfather became ill during a Shabbos farbrengen and had to be escorted from the room. After the farbrengen ended, the Rebbe entered the stairwell on his way back to his office and noticed my elter-zaide sitting there. He asked him what had happened and how he was feeling.

“I fainted,” my great-grandfather replied. “My soul went up to Heaven for a moment. Gehinnom was closed because it was Shabbos, and Heaven didn’t want me, so they sent me back down.”

Even earlier, during the lifetime of the Frierdiker Rebbe, there was a period when the Rebbe was weighed down by the constant stream of devastating news arriving from Germany and Poland during the Holocaust. His gabbaim tried everything they could to lift his spirits. Having exhausted every other idea, they called my great-grandfather and urged him to come immediately.

As he hurried toward 770, he later recounted that he spent the entire walk praying that Hashem place the proper words into his mouth.

Standing before the Frierdiker Rebbe, he said, “One arrest is nothing to brag about. Everybody got arrested in Russia at least once. Twice is already a hiddur mitzvah. Three times is simply showing off.”

The Frierdiker Rebbe, who had been arrested seven times before arriving in America, burst into laughter like his forebear and namesake, Yitzchak Avinu.

These stories have always fascinated me. But perhaps even more fascinating than the stories themselves has been what it has meant to bear his name.

My father’s family hails from Crown Heights and, before that, Russia, while my maternal pedigree traces through Poland and Siberia, where my maternal grandfather learned in the Novardok Yeshiva under the auspices of Rabbi Yehuda Nekritz.

The decision was made to educate my siblings and me in the Litvish yeshiva system. Culturally and socially, that became the world in which I was raised.

Yet throughout those years I lived with a constant awareness of my Lubavitch pedigree. Regardless of how distant I may have been from Chabad in practice, the fact that I carried my great-grandfather’s name always weighed heavily upon my consciousness.

It is uncommon in Chabad for anyone other than the Rebbe to become an object of public reverence. Chabad places such emphasis on bittul that, if you’re not the Rebbe, you’re essentially a nobody. Ironically, to be a nobody in Chabad is perhaps the greatest compliment a chossid can earn.

Which is why I have always found it remarkable that, decades after his passing, people who never met my great-grandfather still react with awe upon hearing his name.

During the Yamim Noraim we recite: “V’shimcha naeh licha, v’atah naeh l’shmecha, u’shimeinu karata b’shimecha, aseh l’ma’an shimecha.” “Your Name is fitting for You, and You are fitting for Your Name. You have called our name by Your Name; act, therefore, for the sake of Your Name.”

Many grandchildren stand in awe of their forebears.

I carry his name.

His name is mine, and mine is his.

Every visit to the Ohel eventually brings me back to the same question:

Am I doing enough to honor the name that I was entrusted to carry?

Several years ago, before COVID, when I was still clean-shaven, I introduced myself to an elderly chossid. When I told him my name, he smiled mischievously and said,

“You’re lucky your great-grandfather isn’t alive.”

I replied, “If he were alive, I wouldn’t have his name.”

He laughed.

“If he saw you,” he said, “he’d kill you.”

I laughed it off.

Yet over the years I have often returned to that conversation.

More than anything, I wish I could have met my elter-zaide. I know the sacrifices he made to remain achossid of the Rebbe. I also know that my grandfather, despite spending time in Chabad yeshivos, later learning in Torah Vodaath, receiving semichah there, and dedicating his career to representing the broader Orthodox world, remained deeply connected to his father. As far as I know, despite not wearing a beard like his siblings, the relationship between my grandfather, Nison, and his father, Reb Yochanan, remained unwavering.

So although my answer to the question of whether I have done enough to honor his name will probably always be “no,” I’d like to believe that from his vantage point, knowing my trajectory and where life easily could have led me had I not carried his name, he takes pride in the path that my wife and I have forged for ourselves and our children—bringing awareness of the Rebbeim and Chassidus to audiences that, not so very long ago, knew little about them.

I recently heard another story that beautifully illustrates the sophistication of his wit.

A Minchah minyan was struggling to find a tenth man. One impatient individual instructed a yeshiva bochur, who was deeply engrossed in learning, to leave the beis midrash and find someone.

The bochur returned empty-handed.

The man scolded him.

“You’re more worthless than the Golem of Prague. At least the Golem accomplished the missions the Maharal sent him to perform.”

My elter-zaide immediately objected.

“Your comparison is completely backwards.

“When the Maharal sent the Golem on a mission, the Maharal remained in the beis midrash learning.

“In this case, you sent the Maharal out…

“…while the Golem stayed inside.”

There are many other stories to share. But in the interest of keeping readers engaged, I’ll conclude with one final episode.

Every Shabbos Bereishis, Reb Yochanan Gordon would don a shtreimel before sharing a Chassidic story or a Polishe vort. One year, however, a shtreimel could not be procured, and no one knew what should be done.

The Rebbe removed a kerchief and tossed it toward my elter-zaide.

“Let this serve instead of the shtreimel.”

That would be the very year that my great-grandfather passed away.

What makes the story all the more mysterious is that the Rebbe is said to have thrown that very kerchief to only three individuals, each during the year of his passing.

Only after putting these stories together did it occur to me that perhaps they correspond to the five levels of the soul.

The story in which my great-grandfather prayed that Hashem place the proper words into his mouth before speaking to the Frierdiker Rebbe, reflects the hidden essence of yechidah, from which everything else emerges. The hagbah episode speaks to chayah, the flash of inspired perception that transformed an awkward moment into one that brought a smile to the Rebbe’s face. His defense of the yeshiva bochur embodies neshamah, wisdom applied with compassion to protect the dignity of another Jew. His response after fainting reveals the warmth, vitality, and emotional richness of ruach. And this final story, rooted in the Rebbe’s kerchief replacing the shtreimel shortly before his passing, finds expression in nefesh, where a lifetime of avodah leaves its imprint upon the physical world.

Perhaps that is also what it means to carry another person’s name.

We are not called upon to become those who came before us. Rather, we are entrusted with carrying something of their soul forward into our own generation.

As we enter the fifty-eighth year since my great-grandfather’s passing—the year of chein—that is my prayer: that I continue to bring honor to the name we shared and to the legacy he left behind. 

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.