from the upcoming Rav Peninim – The Perl family saga.
As a result of the Hungarian Parliament passing the anti-Semitic Numerous Clauses laws in 1937, Zeidy Perl’s spice agent’s license was revoked. Like hundreds of other Hungarian Jewish men he sailed to the U.S. to work and send money home. He planned on earning enough money in New York, to bring the entire family to America as well. Being Shomer Shabbos, however when he didn’t show up for work on Saturday he was fired. He looked for new job every Monday. The bosses knew there were plenty of other immigrants who wanted the job. Although he was reunited with his mother, the Babba Raachel who lived with Feter Moishe Shea, naturally Zeidy wasn’t happy. He wrote to Babby in the summer of 1939, that in America he couldn’t earn a living. There was no Shabbos, no Kosher food, no satisfactory glatt Shechita of meat, and no adequate Torah schools for the children. Therefore he was returning to Kleinvardein.
Babby telegrammed back; “Stay where you are, the skies are getting dark here. (In other words things are hard here), we are coming.” According to Tanta Chana, she heard Babby tell her friend Mrs. Weider HY”D, the Chazan’s wife, “I wrote back I would rather eat a dry piece of bread and be hungry together in New York, than remain in Kleinvardein.”
He telegrammed right back that she should go ask a Tzaddik first what to do. Then he would arrange the visas, permits and necessary immigration documentation. So she traveled about 40 miles to Ratzfert (Újfehértó) another town in Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg County to see Harav Shulem Luzer Halberstam [1]Hy”d. At that time he was the one of the two surviving sons of the legendary Divrei Chaim, Rav Chaim Halberstam of Sanz. Everyone considered him the last link to the holiness of the Sanzer Rebbe. He had replicated the Sanz Chassidishe Kehillah and Minhagim in Újfehértó. After she told him about what Ziedy wrote about the hardships of Shabbos, Kashrus, Chinuch, and Parnasa, he prophetically replied the following,
“שרייַבן צו אייער מאַן ער זאָל צולייגן די דאקומענטן,”
“Write to your husband to arrange your passports & visas.”
“זיי נישט באזארגט די אבישטער זאל הילפן עס וועט זיין שבת אין אַמעריקע,”
“Don’t worry with Hashem’s help there will be Shabbos in America”
“עס וועט זיין גלאט כשר שחיטה און חלב ישראל אין אַמעריקע”
“There will be Glatt Kosher Shechita & Cholov Yisrael in America.”
Babby then asked him, וואָס וועט זיין מיט די קינדער”
“What will be with her children?”
He replied, “עס וועט זיין תורה פֿאַר די קינדער אין אַמעריקע “
“There will be Toirah for the children in America”
Babbi noticed he didn’t say anything about their prospects of earning a living. So she asked him, וואָס וועט מיט אַ פַּרנָסה”?”
So the Tzaddik profoundly replied, מאל איר וועט עסן אויף די טיש, מאל דורך די טיש און א מאל אונטער די טיש””
“Sometimes you will eat on the table (meaning you will have more than enough),”
“Sometimes you will eat by the table (meaning you will have barely have enough)”
” and sometimes you will eat under the table (meaning you won’t have enough and you will struggle but you will have something.)”
With that answer Babby prepared to leave Kleinvardein with her children and join Zeidy in New York. Five years later in June of 1944, the Rebbe Reb Shulem Luzer Halberstam HY”D was killed AK”H in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
[1]Rabbi Shalom Eliezer Halberstam HY”D, the Rebbe of Ratzfert, was the youngest son of the Divrei Chaim of Sanz. He was born in 1862 to his mother the third Rebbitzen of the Sanzer Rov, Rachel (Unger). In 1876 he married his half niece Rebz. Sarah Miriam Twersky (1861-1942), daughter of the Tzaddik Reb Mordechai Dov Twerski, Rebbe of Hornsteipel and son in law of the Divrei Chaim of Sanz. After living in Shineve near his older brother, the Divrei Yechezkel and then in Tarnow in Galicia, he moved to Ratzfert, Hungary in 1898 and set up his hoif there. He became known as one of the biggest Tzaddikim in Hungary. They had six children, the oldest child, Brachah Sima, married Rav Chaim Zvi Teitelbaum of Sighet who died in Kisvárda in 1926. On May 17, 1944 the Nazis began deporting the Jews of Ujfeherto. On June 7, 1944 the Ratzferter Rebbe together with much of his family and Jews of Ratzfert, was gassed on arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Ratzfert Rebbe Rav Shulem Luzer Halberstam HY”D