A page of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s notes on Zohar, written with ink secretly prepared by Rebbetzin Chana. On the original, one can notice the various colors of the homemade ink. These incredible manuscripts later made their way to New York, and were published by their son, the Rebbe.
A page of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s notes on Zohar, written with ink secretly prepared by Rebbetzin Chana. On the original, one can notice the various colors of the homemade ink. These incredible manuscripts later made their way to New York, and were published by their son, the Rebbe.

A page of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s notes on Zohar, written with ink secretly prepared by Rebbetzin Chana. On the original, one can notice the various colors of the homemade ink.
These incredible manuscripts later made their way to New York, and were published by their son, the Rebbe.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and Rebbetzin Chana’s first home in Chi’ili was a single room in the dwelling of a crude Tatar couple who had a young child. The room had no door, and was damp, muddy, and filled with swarms of mosquitoes. They lived in extreme poverty and discomfort, with no privacy.

On the 2nd of Nissan, shortly after Rebbetzin Chana’s arrival, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak woke up feeling weak. However, as this was the anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn, he wanted to honor the day by writing some chassidic thoughts. But alas, there was neither paper nor ink to be had.

Deeply troubled by her husband’s predicament, Rebbetzin Chana traveled to the nearby city of Kzyl-Orda and returned with two notebooks, some powder that could be made into ink, and a small jar to serve as an inkwell. When this ran out, she somehow managed to obtain additional ink and paper for her husband, despite the shortages and the extreme poverty. When ink was not available, Rebbetzin Chana would secretly manufacture her own by soaking herbs she gathered in the fields. Paper was so scarce that her husband wrote in the margins of the books that she had brought with her and on the small scraps of paper that she managed to gather. The ability to write his Torah thoughts, she would later observe, brought her husband greater pleasure than the bread she would serve him after days of hunger.

Gradually, the provisions that Rebbetzin Chana had brought were depleted. The specter of starvation loomed. Though they never discussed it, pangs of hunger tormented them. Once, they did not taste a piece of bread for an entire month.