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As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 123-124, no. 9
R. Yisroel Neveler related in the name of R. Menachem Mendel Gurary that R. Avraham, son of the Rebbe Maharin of Niezhin, told him how as a young man he came to his father and said he was coming not as a son to a father but as a chossid to a Rebbe; his father's advice was that he travel to his uncle in Lubavitch, the Rebbe Maharash. In Lubavitch, Rebbetzin Rivkah prepared a festive welcome and the Rebbe Maharash sat with him for half an hour, but when R. Avraham asked for yechidus the Rebbe answered that the previous night a vein had burst and he had suffered terribly until he tore a piece from his shirt to stop it — yet all that suffering was nothing compared to the difficulty of answering a young man in yechidus; today he could not, tomorrow with G-d's help. He did have yechidus the next day. Returning through Niezhin, his father asked him, "Nu, did I give you good advice?"
4 min to tellexcellent to tell
539 wordsRebbe Maharash
story_000127
score 1.49 ·
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=0.98
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 140-141, no. 12
In the summer of 5674 (1914) the narrator's brother fell ill with tuberculosis of the bone and was taken from Homil to Kiev for surgery, then a second and a third operation, after which he was very weak. The narrator wrote a pidyon and sent it to the Rebbe's summer dacha in Zalsha; an opening formed at the site, the phlegm drained, and the doctor, Kostritzky, said he had never seen such a thing. The narrator brought his brother to Lubavitch for Rosh Hashanah 5675, but with the war having begun on Tisha B'Av and the crowds immense they could not obtain yechidus, and lacking money to stay through Sukkos they had to leave on motzaei Yom Kippur; the Rebbetzin let him wait in the small room outside the yechidus room, and when the Rebbe finally emerged very late and the narrator said "This is my brother," the Rebbe asked, "This is the one whose leg hurt?"
4 min to tellexcellent to tell
534 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000151
score 1.49 ·
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=0.98
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 492-494, no. 14
A member of Anash phoned R. Eliyahu's house asking Mrs. Lipskar to host a family arriving in Toronto with nowhere to stay; things were difficult for her then and she did not answer at once, but when the husband himself called the next day from the road, travelling with his wife and small baby, she gave him her address and prepared her home. After they had rested she asked about their origins, and the guest, whose family name meant nothing to her, said his grandfather was Yisroel Konson of Leningrad and Tashkent — the R. Yisroel Konson who had risked his health to help her and her husband when they hovered between life and death. She was left speechless, and all who heard of the meeting were astounded by the Divine providence; the Lipskars then attended to the family's every need and offered them loans to buy a home in Toronto, so she was finally able to repay a debt that had weighed on her for years.
3 min to tellexcellent to tell
427 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000673
score 1.41 ·
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=0.82
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 476-478, no. 21
R. Yisroel Duchman sought to teach his children hiskashrus, and some of his most important interactions with the Rebbe concerned them. When his second son Yossi was a young child he swallowed an open safety pin that lodged in his esophagus beyond the reach of instruments; doctors planned surgery, warning of possible negative consequences while saying that leaving the pin could be life-threatening, and R. Yisroel said he would consent to nothing before consulting the Rebbe. The Rebbe objected to the surgery and asked that the scheduled surgeon speak with him; the surgeon refused, so the Rebbe spoke by phone with the head of the emergency room and gave precise instructions for removing the pin by lowering a strong magnet down the boy's throat, which worked without difficulty. Afterward the original surgeon insisted on telling the Duchmans that had his own father, himself a doctor, claimed to remove such a pin without surgery he would not have believed him — it was possible only because of their holy Rebbe; and years later, when the grown Yossi asked his father to request a blessing, the Rebbe gave a generous bracha and added, "You can tell Yossi, I think about him more than he thinks about me."
3 min to tellexcellent to tell
361 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000655
score 1.35 ·
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=0.70
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 176, no. 63
R. Pinchas, son of R. Eliyahu Chaim Althoiz, related what he heard from the Rebbe Rayatz: late one erev Shabbos in Lubavitch his father had the large blue teakettle brought in and placed it himself between two cushions. R. Asher, the shochet of Nikolayev, was there that Shabbos, and after Chassidus his father called him to the table and told him to make Kiddush over liquor, wash, eat a kazayis of challah, and drink all the tea in the kettle. Afterwards his father explained that R. Asher had wanted to fast a hafsakah from Shabbos to Shabbos and had come to Lubavitch to ask; since he had already fasted through Wednesday, the Rebbe told him to complete the fast.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
325 wordsRebbe Rashab
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score 1.31 ·
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=0.62
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 224, no. 40
On Purim a young man submitted a pidyon nefesh through the gabbai R. Elchanan for a relative in Homil who suffered from heart disease, and at the Purim seudah that stretched into a farbrengen he asked the Rebbe aloud for a bracha for Zalman. The Rebbe spoke into his ear that he had already read the pidyon carefully, and that if the sick man would take upon himself the support of a cheder, the Rebbe would take his illness upon himself, striking his own heart and saying that a person can live with a heart defect. He added that ordinarily in yechidus he sits with a cigarette and says nothing even while his insides churn — but this time he was telling him.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
318 wordsRebbe Rayatz
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score 1.30 ·
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=0.60
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 438-440, no. 38
Rochel, R. Zalman's only daughter, was sent by the school district with five hundred other students to dig trenches on the outskirts of Leningrad, and the grueling work left her feet numb and swollen and her fingers bleeding. Two boys in the group, one Jewish and one gentile, took pity on her and set out to bring her back to Leningrad for care, but found the local train station bombed beyond recognition. The stationmaster told them that although passenger trains no longer ran, freight trains slowed as they passed, and the three managed to jump aboard a moving train while holding the ailing girl, reaching a hospital in Leningrad where she fully recovered. Word later came that the area where they had been working was bombed by Nazi planes, and of the five hundred students only Rochel and the two who carried her survived; R. Zalman attributed the miracle to the bracha she had received from the Frierdiker Rebbe in Tishrei of 5688 (1927), before he left Russia.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
318 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
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score 1.30 ·
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=0.60
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 141-142, no. 13
The narrator's brother Baruch studied in the Shedrin branch of Tomchei Temimim and, though he answered all his examination questions in nigleh and Chassidus when he came to Lubavitch for Rosh Hashanah 5673, he was told to remain another year in Shedrin; the Rebbe told him to follow the mashpi'im's instructions. When the narrator's father came to Lubavitch for Yud-Tes Kislev of that year and mentioned at the end of yechidus that his heart was weak, the Rebbe answered that his children were frail as well, and that he had sent the younger one back to Shedrin because it was better there in gashmius. Returning home, the father came straight from the train station burning with hispa'alus and described the Rebbe's motzaei Shabbos farbrengen that ran from 11 p.m. until seven in the morning, at which the Rebbe said lechaim on 57% mashkeh, said that Above and Below must be made equal, and drank whole glasses; the giluyim, he testified, were extraordinary.
4 min to tellvery good to tell
508 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000152
score 1.29 ·
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=0.97
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 368-369, no. 4
R. Yitzchak Masmid related that in a small town lived an eminent chossid, R. Itchele. A wealthy man whose daughter had fallen ill gave him money for a pidyon nefesh — and instead the chossid gathered his chassidim for a festive seudah and farbrengen. Challenged by the gvir, he explained that Itchele fasting and weeping is nothing new before G-d, but when Itchele gathers his chassidim and farbrengs, Heaven asks what the occasion is and discovers that the gvir's daughter is ill — which he applied to the verse "And He looked upon their distress when He heard their rejoicing."
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
287 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000488
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. 486-488, no. 8
Some time later the rov's two-year-old daughter was badly burned by scalding water, and though the Rebbe gave a bracha for a complete recovery, her father was disappointed not to be told to make a kiddush as R. Eliyahu had been. Days afterward Rabbi Hadakov conveyed in the Rebbe's name that he should arrange a kiddush in the girl's merit, which he did for that Shabbos. On Motzaei Shabbos her condition collapsed and the doctors gave her hours to live; the Rebbe told them to go to the hospital and make a shturem about the incorrect medicine, and since the rov was reserved by nature, R. Eliyahu went in his place. The doctors discovered that medicine prescribed to be sprinkled on her burns was instead being given to her to drink; once administered correctly, she recovered completely.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
271 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
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score 1.26 ·
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=0.53
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 88, no. 20
A senior chossid in Lubavitch related that in the days of the Tzemach Tzedek he suffered from headaches, and the Rebbe instructed him to put cold water on his forehead, which helped well. After the Tzemach Tzedek passed away it stopped working, so he came to the Rebbe Maharash, who told him that if cold no longer helps he should use hot water — and the headaches disappeared. After the Rebbe Maharash passed away he came to the Rebbe Rashab, who instructed him that if neither hot nor cold help, he should apply lukewarm water.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
219 wordsTzemach Tzedek
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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. 101-102, no. 41
R. Groinem the mashpia recounted that an agunah with a mute son of eight or nine came to the Tzemach Tzedek in Lubavitch and persistently pressed him to tell her where her husband was. Once she had the boy tug at the edge of the Rebbe's garment, and the Rebbe told him, "Tell your mother that your father is returning soon" — which the child did. When the Tzemach Tzedek was told what had happened, he answered, "I didn't know that the boy was mute."
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
188 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000097
score 1.18 ·
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=0.35
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 65-66, no. 6
Reb Aizel related that he once came in to the Mitteler Rebbe during the last years of his nesius and found him lying in bed. The Rebbe complained to him of his great suffering, but said that when he sits down to write Chassidus on the posuk "Your hair is like a flock of goats," he forgets all his pain. With that he jumped out of bed and sat down to write Chassidus.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
147 wordsMitteler Rebbe
story_000048
score 1.14 ·
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=0.28
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 413-414, no. 50
Before his passing, the renowned chossid R. Yaakov Mordechai Bezpalov said that he had slept on a chair for thirty years, and that putting on tefillin even once is more precious than those thirty years of sleeping on a chair. Chassidim commented that in order to feel the preciousness of tefillin the way he felt it, one must first sleep on a chair for thirty years. A note adds that at the end of his life he regretted the self-denial, thinking that had he not weakened himself he might have lived to put on tefillin one more time.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
137 wordsRebbe Rayatz
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score 1.14 ·
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=0.28
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 486-488, no. 7
Immediately after R. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar arrived in Toronto from Germany, his small daughter, who had been born in the German D.P. camp, fell sick and worsened until the doctors lost hope. He wrote to the Rebbe asking for a bracha, and the Rebbe instructed him to prepare a communal kiddush in shul that Shabbos. He did so, drawing the astonished protest of the community rov that he was celebrating while his daughter lay critically ill; shortly afterward her health began to improve until she recovered completely.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
145 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000666
score 1.14 ·
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=0.28
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
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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. 393-394, no. 20
R. Eliyahu Chaim Althoiz related that he once challenged the Rebbe about not lying down to rest during the day, pointing out that his father, the Rebbe Rashab, had done so at the same age. The Rebbe answered, "Ay! — where my father was at my age…!"
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
123 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000519
score 1.11 ·
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=0.22
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 483-484, no. 3
Drafted into the Red Army in the Second World War and wounded at the front, R. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar was permitted to leave besieged Leningrad for medical treatment and to take one person with him; the lot fell on Rochel, daughter of Schneur Zalman Duchman, who was knowledgeable in medical matters. After great difficulties they reached Tashkent, where they married. Conditions there were desperate — people starving in the streets and sickness raging — and Rochel contracted typhus; R. Eliyahu, caring for her when she was alone without family, caught it as well, and both became critical. A chossid in Tashkent, R. Yisroel Konson, cooked porridge for them and brought it to the hospital, leaving it on the windowsill when he was refused entry because of the contagion, and so sustained them and saved them from certain death.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
288 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000662
score 1.08 ·
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=0.55
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 288, no. 8
When Reb Aizel was ill, his students came to visit him. He told them that they know he cannot tolerate gloomy expressions, and instructed them to go pour themselves a little mashkeh and only then come back in to him.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
77 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000367
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=1.00 length_suitability=0.15
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 294-295, no. 24
The narrator's father, the chossid R. DovBer Menachem Mendel, visited his ailing uncle Rav Shneur Zalman in Homil, who was sitting up in bed removing his tefillin and remarked, "Bera Mendel, when the appointed time comes, we are always unprepared." The father answered that he had heard from his own father, Reb Mordechai Yoel, that he had once said to Reb Aizel, "Just as we are close to you here, so may we merit to be close to you there," and that Reb Aizel replied, "No promises; but this is something you may ask for." Uncle Zalman corrected the wording: Reb Aizel had said, "This is something that you should ask for."
2 min to tellvery good to tell
276 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000383
score 1.06 ·
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=0.53
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 456-457, no. 60
R. Zalman's directness and warmth gave him a unique relationship with the Rebbe, so chassidim would ask him to present their requests. In his diary he records a yechidus in Elul 5728 (1968) where the conversation turned to eating before davening: he repeated to the Rebbe what he had heard from R. Binyomin Althoiz, that when a doctor told Meir Shlomo the rov (the Rebbe's grandfather) to eat before davening he took a 25-kopek coin and traveled to Lubavitch, and the Rebbe Rashab told him that one recites Krias Shema in tefillin and should recite Shmoneh Esrei as well; and that Yehoshua Beshenkovitzer, a rov in Vitebsk, was similarly told by the Rebbe Rashab that since the doctor said to eat early, he should finish davening early and then eat. After hearing him out, the Rebbe said, "Those were early chassidim. Today, one must eat, but not like those in Kfar Chabad who eat bread and herring."
2 min to tellvery good to tell
279 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
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score 1.06 ·
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=0.53
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 472-473, no. 12
At the Simchas Torah farbrengen R. Yisroel Duchman would give out l'chaim. Once the Rebbe asked whether he had given Dr. Resnick, and R. Yisroel, in his jolly mood, answered, "Him? He's a yukel!" The Rebbe pressed him: how did he know? "I'm his patient." Did he pay him? "Of course." "Nu..." the Rebbe concluded.
0 min to tellexcellent to tell
68 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000646
score 1.06 ·
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=0.12
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 208-209, no. 16
A young man related over mashkeh that he was deeply affected by that Simchas Torah, especially by the story told about R. Hillel, and that he went into yechidus on the seventh of Cheshvan. The Rebbe told him that the main point of teshuvah is resolve for the future, asked about his health, and then gave him a practical regimen: fast Shovavim on Mondays and Thursdays, and in the meantime fast until 1 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, rise at 6 a.m. and learn as he was accustomed, and in addition learn three mishnayos of Seder Kodashim daily — but really in depth.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
248 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000247
score 1.04 ·
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=0.47
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 313-314, no. 54
R. Yisroel — a son-in-law of Reb Aizel's son R. Yaakov Yosef, and also Reb Aizel's nephew — was seriously ill and paralyzed, and his wife struggled to support their small children through her dry goods store. When it became too much, she came weeping to her zeide, Reb Aizel. He answered her, "What do you want from me? He (the Eibershter) can do whatever He wants with me; I won't give Him any advice."
2 min to tellvery good to tell
237 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000413
score 1.02 ·
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=0.45
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 404, no. 36
In S. Louis, a frum Yid with a Polish accent told the narrator with great enthusiasm that "your Rebbe has ruach hakodesh." He explained that when the Rebbe visited the major American cities, a long line of Jews came in that very shul to hand him pidyonos; from one man the Rebbe took the pidyon, rolled it up like a cigarette, and said, "It is not possible to help you." It later became known that the man's daughter, who was living with a non-Jew, was critically ill.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
238 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000535
score 1.02 ·
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=0.45
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 465, no. 75
Even in his final years R. Zalman Duchman remained steadfastly dedicated to the ideals of Chassidus. His son-in-law R. Eliyahu Lipskier related that during R. Zalman's last days, when his situation was not good, he came in from Toronto and visited him in the hospital on a Friday morning; R. Zalman immediately asked him to bring a question to the Rebbe that day and to relay the answer, saying it was causing him much agony. The question was that he had been careful for so many years to go to the mikvah daily and remain in a state of purity, but in the hospital, where purity mattered so much to him, he was attended by non-Jewish nurses. Though the son-in-law was uncomfortable asking and did not think it was a big deal, he went at once to 770, relayed the question when the Rebbe came out of his room, and the Rebbe considered it seriously and responded — and when the answer was brought back, R. Zalman's face shone.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
238 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000631
score 1.02 ·
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=0.45
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 286-287, no. 6
Hirsch Ber, of Reb Aizel's grandchildren, transported goods from Moscow to Homil and later served as a rov in Homil for many years after Reb Aizel's passing. Returning from Moscow once with a swollen cheek, he came to Reb Aizel and mentioned that he had yahrzeit the following day. Reb Aizel told him, "If you promise to give mashkeh tomorrow, everything will be all right." Hirsch Ber smiled skeptically, and Reb Aizel countered that this custom of the early chassidim — giving mashkeh at a yahrzeit — was "fire and flame."
2 min to tellvery good to tell
225 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000365
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. 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. 86-87, no. 18
Der zeide related in the name of the famed chossid Reb Peretz [Chein] of Chernigov, who said, "In all my days it was only this woman who got the best of me." He had come to speak with Rebbetzin Chaya Mussia, and she complained about the Rebbe's weakened state — that he recites everything from the Siddur, even Asher Yatzar. He answered that he had heard the Alter Rebbe in his later years also recited everything from the Siddur. She replied, "If my zeide had not done so, how would he know to do so?"
2 min to tellvery good to tell
204 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000074
score 1.00 ·
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=0.40
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 295, no. 25
When R. Avraham HaLevi of Borshtzovk, the father of the narrator's zeide, grew weak, the narrator's uncle Rav Shneur Zalman traveled from Korma, where he served as rov, and stayed several weeks before returning home. The narrator's father was present at the parting and heard the uncle say, "Nu, the first thing is: be healthy!" — adding, with a nigun, "and if not, do not be afraid of any angel or any seraph, only of Hashem Himself."
2 min to tellvery good to tell
204 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000384
score 1.00 ·
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=0.40
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 353, no. 54
When the Rebbe Maharash, already Rebbe, once passed through Homil, the narrator's zeide noted three things. The Rebbe drank strong tea, explaining that one cannot sleep while traveling and tea soothes the nerves; he ate preserves, saying "Don't learn from this — for me it is a matter of health"; and he asked to see Reb Aizel's writings, and when told the copies were flawed, answered, "For us, inaccuracies don't conceal anything."
2 min to tellvery good to tell
200 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000471
score 0.99 ·
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=0.38
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 424-425, no. 12
Returning to Homil after Simchas Torah, R. Zalman Duchman was present when his zeide R. Mordechai Yoel passed away at age 83 at four in the morning on erev Shabbos Kodesh, 5 MarCheshvan 5679 (1918). In his own words, the family stood by all night as his zeide turned from side to side holding his yarmulke on his head so it would not fall, and as his soul departed R. Zalman's father cried out, "The crown of our head has fallen," wailing in anguish for six hours without interruption. Before his passing the zeide had asked one of his friends to place a Tanya in his burial place; they placed only the title page (shaar blettl). Soon after, typhus raged in Homil and struck the Duchman family; R. Ber Mendel nursed them back to health, but the effort cost him his life, and having just completed saying kaddish for his father he too passed away.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
192 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000568
score 0.99 ·
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=0.38
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 340-341, no. 39
While R. Yitzchak was living in Baba, a village near Sosnitza, he chose the narrator's zeide as a son-in-law. On one visit a gentile village woman who knew his wife Rochel greeted the zeide with a hug and the words "Ay, Rochel's husband!"; he fled and wanted nothing but a divorce. The Tzemach Tzedek held that Reb Aizel, the zeide's teacher, should order him not to divorce, but Reb Aizel answered that the Rebbe of the generation was the one whose place it was to give orders. R. Yitzchak traveled back and forth over the matter, once slamming Reb Aizel's door in Homil and being asked "Itche, why are you slamming doors?!", and he suffered from malaria for a year; in the end the Tzemach Tzedek ordered the zeide to make peace, and the zeide's firstborn son was named after Reb Aizel.
3 min to tellgood to tell
390 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000456
score 0.97 ·
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=0.75
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 41-42, no. 18
The Mitteler Rebbe was once ill for several days, and his mother, Rebbetzin Sterna, came to the Alter Rebbe and said that his son was unwell and he did not even visit him. The Alter Rebbe went in to him and said, "You have no mercy at all for your mother; the 'explanation' is coming." The Mitteler Rebbe was barely able to ask, "When?" — so weakened had he become from not yet having heard his father's biur on a previous maamar.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
172 wordsAlter Rebbe
story_000018
score 0.96 ·
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=0.32
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 166, no. 49
R. Yosef Lipschitz of Kariokovka lay in the hospital in Homil under the care of Dr. Brook, the eye doctor, and the narrator went with his zeide to visit him. R. Yosef recounted hearing from the Rebbe that when something happens to a Yid, every Yid has the power to open the Tanya and say, "Rebbe, help me!" The recorder adds that this seems to be the source of the custom of placing a pidyon inside a Tanya.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
151 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000188
score 0.95 ·
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=0.30
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 390-391, no. 16
The Rebbe Shlita related in the name of chassidim that the Rebbe Rayatz was deeply shaken when his grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivkah, passed away on Yud Shevat 5674 (1914). The narrator's brother Chaim Baruch, who was present on motzaei Shabbos (Yud Shevat fell on erev Shabbos that year), heard him daven Maariv and said the crying was beyond description. It was said that the Rebbe Rayatz felt responsible: Rebbetzin Rivkah had asked him to summon his father, the Rebbe Rashab, who was then in Menton, but he was protective of his father's strength, and the renowned physician Lieberman was brought from Vitebsk and said there was no danger. When word of Yud Shevat 5710 (1950) arrived, the narrator said that only then could one grasp the loss of 5674; he also notes that the Rebbe Rayatz was traveling and absent when his mother, Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah, passed away on 13 Shevat 5702 (1942) in New York.
3 min to tellgood to tell
363 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000515
score 0.95 ·
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=0.70
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 158, no. 36
Bereh Bobrov, a melamed among the chassidim of Homil, traveled to Lubavitch every Rosh Hashanah. On one such visit he heard that the Rebbe's health was weak and that he would be going to a health spa that winter. At the end of his yechidus he said, "May the Eibershter send you a complete recovery!" The Rebbe's countenance changed and he answered loudly, "Amen!"
1 min to tellvery good to tell
124 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000175
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, pp. 473-474, no. 15
R. Yisroel Duchman once told the Rebbe that he was there because his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been with the Rebbe's father and grandfather through the cold and the heat and all the difficult times. On another occasion the Rebbe held a farbrengen while suffering a severe cold and coughed repeatedly through the sichos. Afterwards R. Yisroel remarked that it was a shame no one like his father was around, recalling that when his father had once been in yechidus and the Rebbe began to cough, his father offered to bring him tea, saying that when a Jew coughs he should drink tea, it helps.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
126 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000649
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, pp. 456-457, no. 63
When R. Zalman had to be hospitalized for surgery, the Rebbe gave him a siddur and Tanya to place on the operating table; he did so and the surgery was successful. Later, on a visit to Chicago, he misplaced the siddur and — as he did with everything that happened to him — informed the Rebbe, but received no response. Not long afterwards R. Yankel Katz of Chicago arrived at his home with it: a non-Jewish woman had found the siddur and brought it to a shul, the gabbai recognized it as a Chabad siddur and brought it to the Chabad shul, and R. Yankel recognized R. Zalman's name and returned it.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
123 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000619
score 0.91 ·
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=0.22
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 459-460, no. 69
In 5727 (1967) a delegation of elder chassidim, R. Zalman Duchman among them, came into the Rebbe's study to voice their concern for the Rebbe's health, because he went to the Ohel often even in bitter cold. The Rebbe refused to hear of it, saying he cannot work without going to the Ohel and that he must carry the load, and added that as for their claim that it is cold at the Ohel, they should ask R. Zalman Duchman, who goes there often and will assure them it is very warm there. R. Zalman himself traveled to the Frierdiker Rebbe's Ohel every month, a trip that took several buses and trains and many hours.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
115 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000625
score 0.91 ·
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=0.22
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 230, no. 47
The narrator relates that when he came to Rostov for Rosh Hashanah 5683 (1922), Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah told him that her son — the Rebbe Rayatz — had been far more gravely ill than his father, the Rebbe Rashab, had been, but that the prayers and Tehillim of Yidden interceded for him and saved him.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
85 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000278
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, pp. 473-474, no. 16
R. Yisroel Duchman's intimate attachment to the Rebbe moved him to spontaneously throw a huge Kiddush in 770 on the night following Rosh Chodesh Kislev 5738, when the Rebbe first went home after his heart attack. He was overwhelmingly happy and wanted others to share in his happiness. The same connection showed in his love for 770: whenever he was in town he visited every day, and after a long day of work he would go to 770 before going home.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
93 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000650
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, pp. 184-186, no. 77
In 5670 or 5671 (1910 or 1911) R. Shmuel Michel Treinin of Petersburg came to Warsaw to organize a conference of Polish chassidic rebbes headed by the Rebbe, who was then abroad. R. Shmuel Michel reserved a hotel while R. Yosef Yozik Gurevitch prepared rooms in his home; when Yoel Wagmeister remarked that in Warsaw everyone stays in private homes, the Rebbe announced, "We are going to Nalevky," to R. Yozik's boundless joy. The narrator describes meeting the Rebbe at the railway station, seeing him for the first time in a shliapa, the Rebbe going out to greet his son the Rebbe Rayatz with a kiss, and handing the Rebbe the copper kvort for washing. Thirty admorim took part in the conference, and at the table the Rebbe recounted the specialist's comment that he had gone a little overboard in limiting his eating.
6 min to tellgood to tell
737 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000216
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=0.60 length_suitability=0.57
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 456-457, no. 62
R. Zalman was unwell and unable to immerse in a mikvah. He wrote to the Rebbe about the ailment, noting that he had gone to the mikvah before writing anyway, "since this is the way of chassidim." The Rebbe blessed him that the ailment should be healed as a result of this act, and that very day it left him.
0 min to tellvery good to tell
69 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000618
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
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 423-424, no. 10
In the summer of 5673 (1913) R. Zalman Duchman traveled with his zeide to Petersburg for a cousin's wedding, and his father R. Ber Mendel visited the Rebbe Rashab at the dacha in Zalsha in the summer of 5674 (1914) on behalf of Colel Chabad. That same summer his brother Boruch fell ill with tuberculosis and Zalman accompanied him to Kiev for surgery, sending the Rebbe a request for a bracha; Boruch recovered miraculously. For Rosh Hashanah 5675 (1914) the brothers traveled to Lubavitch, where the influx of World War I refugees made yechidus impossible until the Rebbetzin let them in through a back door, and when Zalman introduced his brother the Rebbe immediately recalled that a bracha had been requested four months earlier for his leg. In the summer of 5675 (1915) R. Zalman was in Pinsk, lodging with R. Yisroel Yitzchak Lubinsky, the chossid known for davening every word of the ketores in Yiddish translation.
2 min to tellgood to tell
198 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000566
score 0.79 ·
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=0.38
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 95, no. 31
Der Zeide (רמ"י) related that the chometz sold by the Tzemach Tzedek's household included fully baked challah. When Pesach ended he saw Chaim Ber, the Rebbe's attendant, carrying a bowl of soup and the challah into the Rebbe's room. Chaim Ber told him: "You chassidim can think whatever you like, but I know the Rebbe is an elderly Jew who has eaten nothing the whole week, and everything is prepared accordingly."
1 min to tellgood to tell
162 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000087
score 0.75 ·
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=0.30
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 84-85, no. 15
Two of the Tzemach Tzedek's sons passed away during his lifetime, one of them R. Yerachmiel of Orsha. When the Rebbe's wife came to him crying in her grief, he responded, "And Hashem hid it from me." Regarding R. Yaakov he said, "A prisoner cannot free himself."
1 min to tellgood to tell
79 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000071
score 0.68 ·
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=0.15
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 254, no. 92
The chossid R. Dovid Braverman related that the Rebbe Rayatz, in Rostov soon after becoming Rebbe, told him that one's exertion should go into reducing his hours of sleep — sleeping as little as possible — but not into reducing his eating.
1 min to tellgood to tell
76 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000323
score 0.68 ·
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=0.15
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 202, no. 7
The narrator once took leave of the Rebbe Rayatz in Lubavitch, saying, 'Be well.' The Rebbe replied with strong emphasis, 'But healthy!'
0 min to tellgood to tell
41 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000238
score 0.66 ·
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=0.12
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 242, no. 70
The Rebbe said that we have grown so weak that our feet move weakly and our vision is weak, and we lose our strength — but 'they who wait for Hashem shall renew their strength.'
0 min to tellgood to tell
56 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000301
score 0.66 ·
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=0.12
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