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As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 352-353, no. 53
The narrator's zeide, Mordechai Yoel, related that the Rebbe Maharash held Reb Aizel of Homil's Chassidus in high regard — though he called him "der Hieger" or "der Homiler" and reserved the title "Rebbe" for the Tzemach Tzedek — since he had been Reb Aizel's outstanding disciple. Early one summer morning, walking through the Rebbe's courtyard after a late farbrengen and a generous measure of mashkeh, the zeide was called over by the Rebbe Maharash at the window. When the conversation turned to Reb Aizel's Chassidus, the zeide said with a nigun that the Rebbe and his children do not need it, but the Rebbe's grandchildren and ordinary chassidim should learn it. Glancing up as he finished, he saw the Tzemach Tzedek in the second window — and, as he recounted, he sobered instantly and fled.
3 min to tellexcellent to tell
376 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000470
score 1.36 ·
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=0.72
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 279-280, no. 125
The narrator heard the Rebbe speak twice in Leningrad about the nigun known in Lubavitch as 'The Beinoni' (Sefer HaNigunim #46). Once, apparently on Yud-Tes Kislev 5687, the Rebbe said that he himself was not a singer but his father was, and that when Aharon Charitonov, the shochet of Nikolayev, composed the nigun, had he only pictured himself standing in yechidus before his father — something is missing. On motzaei Yom Kippur 5688, after the nigun was sung, the Rebbe said, "This is a nigun of a beinoni. What is a beinoni? You know. Then why aren't you...?" The narrator later wrote the story to the Rebbe in Brooklyn, concluding that each person can find the meaning within himself, and the Rebbe concurred.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
315 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000356
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. 270-272, no. 113
The Rebbe arrived in Leningrad on Friday, the 15th of Tammuz, and before Kabbalas Shabbos gave the handwritten text of HaGomel to his son-in-law R. Shmaryahu Gurary to be studied beforehand. When asked whether there would be Chassidus on Shabbos, the Rebbe replied that "they are giving me one Shabbos." A Kiddush was held; his davening ran late and was heard through the white door with the nigun of Avinu Malkeinu, and at the table he said several times during the farbrengen, "This is the Seudas Hodaah" — for it was in Leningrad that he said the bracha of HaGomel. This surprised everyone, since the conventional assumption was that he should have said it in Kostrama, especially as the sentence had unfolded "above to below": a death decree commuted to ten years in Solovki and then reduced to three years of exile in Kostrama.
4 min to tellvery good to tell
466 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000344
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=0.80 length_suitability=0.90
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 312, no. 51
Reb Aizel explained, with a nigun, that when the Alter Rebbe would say Chassidus the nefesh ha'bahamis would flee, whereas nowadays one can listen to and study Chassidus while the animal soul remains at full strength and untroubled — it resists only davening at length and traveling to the Rebbe. The narrator adds that his zeide (רמ"י) reported hearing from the baalei batim of Sosnitza, where the zeide was a son-in-law, that whenever they needed to travel to the Tzemach Tzedek the greatest obstacles would arise; yet once they overcame them and set out, on the way back from Lubavitch they saw that the obstacles had been utterly nothing.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
246 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000410
score 1.24 ·
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=0.47
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 173-174, no. 59
In Lubavitch it was the custom at the conclusion of Rosh Hashanah, after the Rebbe's second maamar, to sing the nigun of R. Shlomo der Geller of Nevel and break into a lively dance. One year the dancing grew so intense that it spilled out of the large zal into the courtyard. The Rebbe sent his attendant R. Nachman to deliver a message in his name: "Vegilu bir'ada" — Rejoice, in awe — and the crowd was quieted by sheer fright.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
180 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000198
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. 214-215, no. 26
On what the narrator believes was Purim 5686 (1926), after the Alter Rebbe's nigun and the dancing, the Rebbe sat down by the western wall. The narrator approached and told him a teaching he had heard from his zeide in the name of the Tzemach Tzedek: one who repeats a teaching is no more than as though its author stands before him, but with a nigun it is the composer of the nigun himself. The Rebbe answered, "Emes, emes."
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
175 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000257
score 1.16 ·
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=0.32
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 433-435, no. 26
In Malachovka the Frierdiker Rebbe remained under constant surveillance and concluded he had no choice but to leave Russia entirely, scheduled for Isru Chag of Sukkos 5688 (1927). That Tishrei was highly emotional for chassidim, since for many it would be their last time seeing him, and for Simchas Torah they traveled from all across the Soviet Union to be with him before he left. R. Zalman, who was with the Frierdiker Rebbe for that Tishrei, recalls that the last dance engraved in his memory took place on the last Simchas Torah during the day, when the Rebbe held his holy hands up high and sang Nye Zhuritze Chloptzi.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
142 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000582
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. 275-276, no. 120
The tomim DovBer Yudevitch wrote from Riga that on Yud-Beis Tammuz 5688 (1928), while the Rebbe was convalescing near Riga, the chassidim at the farbrengen began singing Padeh BeShalom. The Rebbe stopped them, saying, "As long as Russian Jews are suffering, I'm together with them 'in the same barrel.'"
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
126 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000351
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, p. 213, no. 23
On Yud-Tes Kislev 5688 (1927) the Rebbe sent R. Shmuel Michel Treinin to dance with the younger men. Earlier the older men had danced among themselves and the Rebbe joined them. Afterwards he said, "Now let us mix with everyone. What is a dance? When one mixes together with everyone" — and he began to dance.
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
111 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000254
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. 391-392, no. 17
When the nigun that the Rebbe Rayatz had named "The Beinoni" was sung in Leningrad, he said, "I am not a singer; my father was a singer." The narrator raises a difficulty: the Rebbe's sichah of Lag B'Omer 5709 (1949) contains his own notes from 20 Iyar 5656 (1896), written when he was sixteen, describing in detail the nigun his father davened with and the meaning of each of its three stanzas. The resolution offered is that singing a nigun and understanding a nigun are two different things.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
248 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000516
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, p. 59, no. 42
Reb Groinem the mashpia would imitate the way chassidim heard the Alter Rebbe sing, with a nigun, the words "K'ayal taarog al afikei mayim" followed by "V'ahavta es Hashem Elokecha." Reb Groinem explained that Chassidus hints at the connection between the two pesukim: the first expresses ratzo and the second shov. A footnote notes that other sources cite the second phrase as "V'hayu l'totafos bein einecha," since V'ahavta is itself a ratzo.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
203 wordsAlter Rebbe
story_000042
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. 215, no. 27
On Yud-Tes Kislev of what the narrator thinks was 5688, a chazan from Leningrad named Nachbeh came, and the Rebbe's son-in-law the Rashag asked him to sing. The Rebbe told the chazan it would be better for him to take from them than for them to take from him: since he was a musician and said his zeide had been a prominent chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek in Orsha, if he would learn one of their nigunim and sing it on his own it would certainly bring him to something.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
177 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000258
score 0.98 ·
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=0.35
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 53-54, no. 33
Der Zeide described how the chassidim in Liozna wanted to observe how the Alter Rebbe ate. Watching stealthily through a window late one evening, they saw a bowl of buckwheat kasha brought to him, and as he reached in to take a handful he said with a nigun, 'It is necessary to take a kometz' — the handful of the meal-offering in the Beis Hamikdash. The onlookers were seized with fear and fled.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
168 wordsAlter Rebbe
story_000033
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, pp. 242-243, no. 71
The narrator recalls the last dance engraved in his memory, on the last Simchas Torah during the day: the Rebbe held his holy hands up high and sang Nye Zhuritze Chloptzi. In the middle he stopped and said that a gift is given, but had the recipient not pleased the benefactor it would not have been given to him — and he spoke lofty words that the narrator could not understand.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
158 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000302
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. 389-390, no. 15
On the same occasion the Rebbe told of a wedding band that included a youngster whose job was to pound the drum and call out "Freilicher, freilicher!" When the boy once forgot to keep the tempo, the bandleader slapped him - and though he was crying, he still had to go on singing, "Freilicher, freilicher!"
1 min to tellvery good to tell
136 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000514
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. 156-157, no. 33
The same young man came to the Rebbe for yechidus one summer day in the large zal in Rostov, and the Rebbe's face was radiant. He asked whether, being accustomed to sing while davening, it would be better to hold himself back. The Rebbe answered, 'No, no — these are the G-dly soul's powers revealing themselves.'
1 min to tellvery good to tell
108 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000172
score 0.90 ·
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=0.20
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 184, no. 76
On Shabbos during the summer in Lubavitch, people would stand near the Rebbe's room and listen through the wooden walls to the nigun with which the Rebbe davened. The narrator says that by G-d's kindness he can still hear that nigun in his ears to this day, and that he believes it is one of the Alter Rebbe's ten nigunim.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
93 wordsRebbe Rashab
story_000215
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. 452-453, no. 54
At the end of the Simchas Torah farbrengen of 5726 (1965), when it was time to begin hakafos, the Rebbe instructed R. Zalman to announce "Sha, shtiller!" to quiet the crowd. After several attempts the Rebbe asked him to announce three times, "Kol mevaser, mevaser v'omer!" -- from the Hoshanos liturgy -- and as he did, the Rebbe smiled. At another Simchas Torah farbrengen, when the Rebbe asked the children to sing "Hamal'ach Hagoel," R. Zalman led the singing, to the Rebbe's great delight.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
90 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000610
score 0.89 ·
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As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 214, no. 25
At a farbrengen the Rebbe instructed that the Alter Rebbe's nigun be sung, with the last section repeated no fewer than seven times and no more than ten, and the ninth repetition running directly into the tenth. He added that everyone should have thoughts of teshuvah while singing.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
76 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000256
score 0.88 ·
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=0.15
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 206-207, no. 13
When the chassidim were about to sing the Alter Rebbe's well-known nigun, the Rebbe said, "We will sing Chaim Ber's nigun, and then Shmuel's, and then the Rebbe's." The narrator explains the older names: what is now called Shmuel Gurary's nigun the Rebbe called Chaim Ber's, and what is today called the Rebbe's (the Rebbe Rashab's) he called Shmuel's — the nigun the Rebbe Rashab could sing endlessly, as the narrator recalls from Simchas Torah 5676 (1915), when the chassidim would stop and the Rebbe Rashab would begin it again. It was a true Simchas Torah, an awakening to teshuvah.
2 min to tellgood to tell
275 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000244
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=0.60 length_suitability=0.53
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 327-328, no. 15
The narrator describes his zeide's fixed order of davening: a lengthy Maariv every evening, Hallel at the amud with the same nigun on both nights of Pesach, a minyan at home on Shabbos and Yom Tov but davening in the study hall during the week, and a home minyan with lengthy davening on a yahrzeit. On Shabbos he began earlier than on weekdays because he was careful to daven Musaf no later than 1 p.m. When the narrator's father was going through a difficult time, the zeide said it was because he davens Musaf later than 1 p.m., against the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah.
2 min to tellgood to tell
272 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000432
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=0.60 length_suitability=0.53
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 109, no. 53
R. Shneur Zalman Schneerson, Rav of Homil, related in the name of his father R. Shalom Ber of Retzitza, who heard it from his own father the Maharil, son of the Tzemach Tzedek: at the gathering known as the "Great Shavuos" there were seventy rabbonim, and the occasion came to be called the "Festival of Matzos" — a play on the fact that a rov is called a Mot"z. The Maharil heard how the Tzemach Tzedek recited the verse in Tehillim "I am a worm and not a man, the scorn of men and despised of the people," and he imitated his father's nigun.
1 min to tellgood to tell
173 wordsTzemach Tzedek
story_000109
score 0.76 ·
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=0.32
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 360-361, no. 5
In Leningrad, R. Leivik stayed as a guest of DovBer Shilums, the son-in-law of Reb Boruch Shalom, the Tzemach Tzedek's eldest son. At the Shabbos Kiddush — the narrator believes it was Parshas Toldos, since he spoke about Yitzchak and Rivkah and how children's conduct deeply affects their parents — he began singing Asader LeSeudasa. When the "shpitz chassidim" raised their eyebrows at the singing of zemiros, he explained that it appears in Eitz Chaim.
1 min to tellgood to tell
172 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000479
score 0.76 ·
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=0.32
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 125, no. 11
At the bar mitzvah of the narrator's son DovBer Menachem Mendel on 23 Cheshvan 5696 (1935), R. Elchanan Morozov recited the posuk "Hodieini Hashem kitzi" using the melody with which the Rebbe Maharash had said it. Rav Gluskin, the Rav of Minsk, sat by with tears streaming from his eyes.
1 min to tellgood to tell
131 wordsRebbe Maharash
story_000129
score 0.72 ·
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=0.25
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 330-331, no. 21
The narrator describes his zeide's (רמ"י) Shabbos practice of saying Chassidus twice — between Kabbalas Shabbos and Maariv, and again at Shalosh Seudos. His grandmother would bake small challos, a minyan washed for bread, and fish and compote were served. Bnei Heichalah was sung to its familiar nigun, another nigun preceded the Chassidus, and bentching followed the maamar.
1 min to tellgood to tell
136 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000438
score 0.72 ·
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=0.25
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 328, no. 16
The narrator recalls that in the middle of davening his zeide would burst into a nigun. Listening to him, he says, was pure delight.
0 min to telltells with work
36 wordsRebbe Rayatz
story_000433
score 0.46 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.40 length_suitability=0.12
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