Find a story
12 stories
Add the stories you want to your picks as you browse, then build
a newsletter or farbrengen sheet from them.
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 307-308, no. 42
The zeide related that when Reb Aizel passed away, one man who was not among his students wept uncontrollably. Asked why, he explained that in his youth he had set out to commit a transgression, and Reb Aizel, walking behind him after davening in the Lubavitcher shul, shouted twice, 'Where are you going!? Go to shul and recite some Tehillim!' He said Reb Aizel had saved his life, and asked how he could not cry over such a tzaddik. Reb Aizel used to tell him, 'You have mazel,' and the zeide revealed the man's identity only after he passed away.
3 min to tellexcellent to tell
337 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000401
score 1.32 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.65
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 219-221, no. 36
At a Yud-Tes Kislev farbrengen in 5685 or 5686, the Rebbe related that his father had received a letter from the Rav of Chevron reporting that missionaries were trying to buy the shul held by tradition to be Avraham Avinu's, and that 25,000 rubles were needed for a counteroffer. Father and son traveled to Moscow, where a meeting of Moscow gvirim went badly until R. Shmuel Gurary offered to give the entire sum on condition that the shul be purchased in the Rebbe's name, sending in the morning a note and a check for 5,000 rubles though he was then deeply in debt. When the Rebbe brought the note and check to his father, his father said: Rasag accomplished the opening of Jewish minds, and Rashag accomplished the opening of Jewish hearts.
4 min to tellvery good to tell
493 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000267
score 1.27 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.95
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 429-430, no. 21
R. Zalman's poverty was dreadful -- when Chaya Grunya pointed out that their chairs were so battered it was an embarrassment to have them around, he could only suggest moving them to a room where they would not be seen -- yet he never hesitated to bring guests home, and his tiny apartment had a partition set up to make a sleeping area for them. Every Shabbos after davening he brought home the most unfortunate individuals; when his wife wondered whether there were any normal guests needing a meal, he explained that by the time he finished davening the shul was empty and only these people remained. One day a Yid came needing a place to stay, and R. Zalman gave him his own "private quarters" while the family crowded into the other cordoned area; in the middle of the night loud moaning was heard from behind the curtain and R. Zalman watched over him the whole night. The family later realized the man suffered from epilepsy and that R. Zalman had placed him apart so as to spare embarrassment, and his children took on the same extraordinary kindness -- sharing their food with guests and giving away their own beds while they slept on the floor in a corner.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
280 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000577
score 1.27 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.55
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 437-438, no. 36
The Yevsektzia eventually targeted R. Zalman, assigning a Jewish communist named Sorkin to bring him in for interrogation. Unlike most who were taken in, he was released each evening only to be forced back the next morning for long and painful interrogations day after day. His fingers were placed in a doorway's hinges and the door slammed on his hand repeatedly - for the rest of his life his fingernails did not grow - yet he would not give the interrogators the names and addresses of his fellow teachers of Torah. His daughter Rochel, about seventeen, accompanied him and waited outside, but he told even her nothing, refusing to add to his family's pain; only years later did he mention some of what he had endured.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
262 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000592
score 1.25 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.50
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 475-476, no. 20
In 5723 (1962), when R. Yisroel Duchman was earning very little, he served as a chazan in a nearby shul for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, earning around $300, which he set aside to buy the family a washing machine. That year an uncle came from Eretz Yisroel for a bracha to marry off his three older daughters; in yechidus the Rebbe told him that if he grew a beard he would find good shidduchim for them, but the uncle, clean shaven and ten years older than his wife, was certain she would not agree. Knowing that their aunt badly wanted a leather coat the couple could not afford, the Duchmans gave away all the money saved for their much-needed washing machine so the uncle could buy it for her. He began to grow his beard, and within a few months all three daughters found good shidduchim.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
216 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000654
score 1.21 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.43
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 87-88, no. 19
The mashpia R. Groinem recalled that Rebbetzin Chaya Mussia came to the Tzemach Tzedek and told him that their son, the Rebbe Maharash, does not sleep at all. The Tzemach Tzedek asked his son, "Why don't you sleep? I sleep, as well." The Rebbetzin could not bear to hear it — "You sleep…?!" — and he answered, "But I lie down!" R. Groinem would conclude: to lie down and not sleep is even harder.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
135 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000075
score 1.12 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.25
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 187-188, no. 79
The venerable R. Nochum of Radomishl came to Lubavitch in the summer of 5667 or 5668 (1907 or 1908) and spent three hours in yechidus with the Rebbe. He related that the Alter Rebbe's son R. Moshe had lived in Radomishl in seclusion on the mountain by the study hall, fasting and afflicting himself — R. Nochum once saw in the bath-house the long groove a rope had etched into his back — and that no one knew who he was; in Lubavitch they said R. Nochum gave R. Moshe's writings to the Rebbe. He remembered R. Moshe telling him, "Listen, my child: every mitzvah from which the body takes pleasure, you should run from." He also told how his father-in-law in Mosier once pointed out Avigdor, an old Jew with a rope tied around him running after gentile women, as a sight worth seeing, and how that father-in-law fainted when the picture of the Alter Rebbe was brought to him.
4 min to tellgood to tell
500 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000218
score 1.07 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.60 length_suitability=0.95
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 440-441, no. 40
Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar, a young tomim born in Poltava in 5678 (1918) to the local rav R. Chaim Tzvi — who, though not a Chabad chossid, sent his children to Tomchei Temimim as their only hope of remaining upstanding Jews — lost his father at age twelve, when he was arrested for teaching Torah and died from the suffering. Eli went into business successfully as a bochur and donated large sums to the underground operations of R. Nissan Nemenov, R. Bentzion Shemtov and R. Avraham Mayor. Drafted into the Russian army at the outbreak of World War II, he was injured and released for treatment; as an injured soldier he was permitted a helper, and R. Zalman's oldest child and only daughter, who had nursing experience, accompanied him away from the front at Leningrad. The two reached Tashkent, joined the Lubavitch community there and married; when both contracted typhus and were quarantined, a caring chossid, R. Yisroel Konson, sustained them with nourishing food and saved them from death.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
227 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000596
score 1.01 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.43
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 484-485, no. 4
In Tashkent R. Eliyahu was a zealous activist: he established chadarim where children were taught Torah, did many deeds of kindness, and helped the public with communal needs. R. Aharon Chazan recounts in his book Neged Hazerem that it was R. Eliyahu who recommended he take a position in the secret cheder network — R. Aharon founded the chadarim and found teachers while R. Eliyahu raised the money to pay them. After his release from the Red Army R. Eliyahu went into business and, despite the danger, profited, using most of the money to support the Chabad underground that secretly maintained yeshivos and chadarim, and to help families whose breadwinner had no work or who were denied ration coupons for refusing to work on Shabbos. Living in Moscow while many religious Jews remained in Tashkent, and with money transfers nearly impossible, he served as a conduit for smuggled goods but dealt only with merchants willing to send some of the wares to the secret yeshivos — all the while in great personal danger.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
224 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000663
score 1.01 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.43
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 450-451, no. 51
The open home R. Zalman Duchman had kept in Leningrad came with him to New York: every Shabbos he and his wife hosted guests for meals, for lodging or both, sharing their minimal provisions. Long before there was any organized hospitality, he made a special effort to look after the visitors in 770, supplying them with hot drinks to warm their frigid bones — even early on Simchas Torah morning at the end of the midnight farbrengen. Each month, when his government stipend arrived, he would deposit the money with a local grocer who had a large family and needed the cash, and collect from him only what he himself needed, when he needed it.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
134 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000607
score 0.93 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.25
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 292, no. 19
A Yid told the narrator's zeide that he had gone in to see Reb Aizel, who was sitting on a small stove to warm himself. When the visitor touched the stove he burned his hand, and realized that Reb Aizel was deliberately afflicting himself.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
96 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000378
score 0.89 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.18
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 122, no. 8
Speaking of the Rebbe Maharash's hatzne'a leches, the narrator's zeide once came upon the Rebbe sitting in tallis and tefillin for four hours between two doors. The Rebbe had positioned himself there so that people would assume he was somewhere else.
0 min to tellvery good to tell
54 wordsRebbe Maharash
story_000126
score 0.86 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.12
|